the impact of food and economic crises on diet and nutrition the conventional view is that inelastic demand makes consumption of staple foods resilient to major price and income shocks we explore the dietary and nutritional implications of a major shock in bulgaria in the mid 1990s with data from before during and after the shock while demand for foodstuffs may remain relatively unchanging in environments characterised by stable food prices and incomes economic crises and significant price spikes appeared to induce dramatic changes in price and income demand elasticities we therefore suggest the use of caution in basing policy prescriptions on randomly available pre crisis simulations

price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets price dispersion i e a homogeneous product being sold at different prices by different sellers is among the most replicated findings in empirical economics the paper assesses the extent and determinants of spatial price dispersion for 14 perfectly homogeneous food products in more than 400 retailers in a market characterized by the persistence of a large number of relatively small traditional food stores alongside large supermarkets the extent of observed price dispersion is quite high when prices in an urban area where the spatial concentration of sellers is higher are compared with those in smaller towns and rural areas differences in search costs and the potentially higher degree of competition do not yield lower prices other counteracting factors including differences in seller costs and consumer incomes make prices on average higher in the urban area for 11 of the 14 products considered for many but not all the products supermarkets proved to be less expensive than traditional retailers although average savings from food shopping at supermarkets were extremely low finally the results of the study provide evidence that retailers have different pricing strategies and these differences also emerge for supermarkets belonging to the same chain the results presented in the paper suggest that a variety of factors play a role in explaining price dispersion in addition to differences in seller costs the contemporaneous heterogeneity of retailers in terms of services provided and consumers in terms of search costs and preferences makes the emergence of monopolistic competition possible as well as allowing small traditional food retailers to remain in business

the retail price of inequality abstract this paper studies the relation between a city s income distribution and its retail price level using panel data we find that an increase in the presence of lower middle income households relative to poor or upper income households is associated with lower prices our findings suggest that greater income inequality raises the prices that poor households face thus making it harder for them to invest in human capital

quantity aggregation in consumer demand analysis when physical quantities are observed a method for estimating price and income elasticities from cross section data devised by deaton 1986 1987 1988 makes implicit use of the hicks composite commodity theorem recognition of this fact allows theoretically rigorous definition of aggregate composite quantities a comparison of elasticities of hicks composite with elasticities of simple physical quantity measures for the ivory coast and the united states demonstrates that use of physical quantity measures can be severely misleading when commodity heterogeneity is substantial copyright 1990 by mit press

an optimal replenishment policy for deteriorating items with effective investment in preservation technology abstract in this paper considering the amount invested in preservation technology and the replenishment schedule as decision variables we formulate an inventory model with a time varying rate of deterioration and partial backlogging the objective is to find the optimal replenishment and preservation technology investment strategies while maximizing the total profit per unit time for any given preservation technology cost we first prove that the optimal replenishment schedule not only exists but is unique next under given replenishment schedule we show that the total profit per unit time is a concave function of preservation technology cost we then provide a simple algorithm to figure out the optimal preservation technology cost and replenishment schedule for the proposed model we use numerical examples to illustrate the model

quality quantity and nutritional impacts of rice price changes in vietnam summary asian governments intervene in the world rice market to protect domestic consumers whether consumers are nutritionally vulnerable depends on the elasticity of calories with respect to rice prices common demand models applied to household survey and market price data ignore quality substitution and force all adjustment onto the quantity calorie margin this paper uses data from vietnam on market prices food quantity and quality a 10 increase in the relative price of rice reduces household calorie consumption by less than 2 but this elasticity would be wrongly estimated to be more than twice as large if quality substitution is ignored

optimal retailer investments in green operations and preservation technology for deteriorating items abstract this paper examines the impact of dynamic retailer investments in green operations while considering the reference price effect a replenishment problem based on joint pricing dynamic investment in green operations preservation technology and optimal replenishment times for deteriorating items is considered as a way to maximize retailer profit in this problem the demand rate depends on the sales and reference prices as well as green concern level optimal control theory is employed to obtain a dynamic investment rate and a simulated annealing algorithm is used to find the solution of the nonlinear constraint optimization problem which determines the price preservation technology investment and replenishment cycle time in addition computational simulations and sensitivity analyses are carried out to offer managerial insights the findings suggest that continuous investment in green operations and preservation technology can significantly improve the retailer s financial performance the consumer reference price is an important influence on the retailer s decision to invest in green operations furthermore results show that the higher price sensitivity of the market always discourages the retailer from investing in green operations the retailer needs to invest more in green operations for products with relatively high unit value

buying less but shopping more the use of nonmarket labor during a crisis households allocating time between market and non market uses should respond to income variations by adjusting the time devoted to shopping search and other home production activities in this paper we exploit high frequency household expenditure data to examine the use of changes in shopping intensity as a method of mitigating the effects of the 2002 argentine economic crisis although the total quantity and real value of goods purchased fell during the crisis consumers are found to be doing more shopping search this increase in shopping is shown to enable households to seek out lower prices and locate substitutes allowing a given level of expenditure to buy more goods the magnitude and prevalence of these effects suggest that this non market use of labor can be an important coping strategy for households during a recession

do the urban poor face higher food prices evidence from vietnam abstract whether there is a poverty penalty in terms of food prices is unsettled in the literature after more than four decades of study unit values from household surveys suggest that prices vary with income while outlet surveys typically find food prices varying with store type but not with neighborhood income most outlet surveys are from rich countries with just one spatially limited study from a developing country in this paper we use especially collected food price data from metropolitan areas of vietnam to test whether the urban poor face higher food prices food prices in low income neighborhoods are 1 lower on average than in other neighborhoods unit values give a different answer to the question of whether the poor face higher prices and are not suited to answer such a question

international income inequality measuring ppp bias by estimating engel curves for food there are large differences between rich and poor people in the world this is of major concern to economists as well as to policy makers the magnitude of the dif ferences however depends on the measure used for comparisons to illustrate per capita income in china is more than five times larger if one uses penn world table pwt 1 incomes rather than exchange rate based ex incomes in this paper we study pwt incomes which aim at correcting for price level dif ferences across countries and identify the bias in them by estimating engel curves for food furthermore we study the relationship between the bias and the income of a country the pwt produces purchasing power parity ppp adjusted incomes and thus the associated bias is referred to as the ppp bias having estimated the bias in pwt incomes we provide new estimates of real income and refer to these as the engel curve ec incomes by comparing the estimated ec incomes and the pwt incomes the issue of how the bias influences estimated inequality is discussed finally we discuss whether ex incomes which simply transform each country s nominal income into one common currency provide better estimates of income than do pwt incomes this paper reports three main findings first there is substantial and systematic ppp bias in the pwt incomes the poorer the country the more its income tends to be overestimated 2 second the ppp bias causes a substantial and robust underesti mation of international inequality the gini index increases substantially when one adjusts for the bias third whereas pwt incomes provide better estimates than the ex incomes for the richer countries the ex incomes which implicitly assume that ppp holds provide better estimates for the poorer countries as we know that price levels differ across countries there is consensus that the seminal work on establishing the pwt was a well founded initiative and the data have been extensively used 3 still although many studies rely on pwt data few focus on the ppp bias in this dataset some contributors focus on one component of the bias however the so called substitution bias and use macro data to measure this

dynamic pricing with loss averse consumers and peak end anchoring we study the dynamic pricing implications of a new behaviorally motivated reference price mechanism based on the peak end memory mode this model suggests that consumers anchor on a reference price that is a weighted average of the lowest and most recent prices loss averse consumers are more sensitive to perceived losses than gains relative to this reference price we find that a range of constant pricing policies is optimal for the corresponding dynamic pricing problem this range is wider the more consumers anchor on lowest prices and it persists when buyers are loss neutral in contrast with previous literature in a transient regime the optimal pricing policy is monotone and converges to a steady state price which is lower the more extreme and salient the low price anchor is our results suggest that behavioral regularities such as peak end anchoring and loss aversion limit the benefits of varying prices and caution that the adverse effects of deep discounts on the firm s optimal prices and profits might be more enduring than previous models predict

quality quantity and spatial variation of price this paper develops and implements a method for estimating price elasticities of demand using cross sectional household survey data geographically clustered households report unit values which when corrected for quality effects and for measurement error indicate the underlying spatial variation in prices and can be matched to variation in demand patterns a simple model of quality choice is proposed while the correction for measurement error exploits the clustered design of such surveys data from a 1979 household survey from the ivory coast are used to estimate price elasticities for beef meat fish cereals and starches copyright 1988 by american economic association

dynamic pricing strategies with reference effects we consider the dynamic pricing problem of a monopolist firm in a market with repeated interactions where demand is sensitive to the firm s pricing history consumers have memory and are prone to human decision making biases and cognitive limitations as the firm manipulates prices consumers form a reference price that adjusts as an anchoring standard based on price perceptions purchase decisions are made by assessing prices as discounts or surcharges relative to the reference price in the spirit of prospect theory we prove that optimal pricing policies induce a perception of monotonic prices whereby consumers always perceive a discount respectively surcharge relative to their expectations the effect is that of a skimming or penetration strategy the firm s optimal pricing path is monotonic on the long run but not necessarily at the introductory stage if consumers are loss averse we show that optimal prices converge to a constant steady state price characterized by a simple implicit equation otherwise the optimal policy cycles the range of steady states is wider the more loss averse consumers are steady state prices decrease with the strength of the reference effect and with customers memory all else equal offering lower prices to frequent customers may be suboptimal however if these are less sensitive to price changes than occasional buyers if managers ignore such long term implications of their pricing strategy the model indicates that they will systematically price too low and lose revenue our results hold under very general reference dependent demand models

the price effects of cash versus in kind transfers this article examines the effect of cash versus in kind transfers on local prices both types of transfers increase the demand for normal goods in kind transfers also increase supply in recipient communities which could lead to lower prices than under cash transfers we test and confirm this prediction using a programme in mexico that randomly assigned villages to receive boxes of food trucked into the village equivalently valued cash transfers or no transfers we find that prices are significantly lower under in kind transfers compared to cash transfers relative to the control group in kind transfers cause a 4 fall in prices while cash transfers cause a positive but negligible increase in prices in the more economically developed villages in the sample households purchasing power is only modestly affected by these price effects in the less developed villages the price effects are much larger in magnitude which we show is due to these villages being less tied to the outside economy and having less competition among local suppliers

private eco brands and green market development towards new forms of sustainable governance in food retailing abstract this study seeks to analyze the role of retail eco brands in the development of markets for sustainability certified food products building on insights from the new institutional economics nie paradigm but also broader literature in the supply chain management and marketing research we suggest that private eco branding and third party certification can be explained as private institutional arrangements that motivate and enable sustainability governance by retailers both upstream and downstream in the value chain based on semi structured interviews with western european retailers this study reveals critical functions of retailers sustainability oriented brands these functions address a number of inefficiencies pertained to the third party certification making eco branding a private product policy tool to proactively set and implement sustainability in food production and consumption practices at the same time limitations associated with the development and use of private eco brands are identified based on these limitations we suggest that while retailer s eco brands are likely to play an important role in transforming food markets towards higher levels of sustainability in the future the continuous value of third party certification schemes in implementing sustainability in the food supply chain should not be underestimated the role of the latter will be to reduce transaction costs and liability risks associated with retail efforts to govern product sustainability issues upstream in the supply chain

using semiparametric models to study nutrition improvement and dietary change with different indices the case of china in company with rapid economic growth chinese consumers have seen a remarkable nutrition improvement and a dramatic dietary change this article investigates the driving forces behind these changes with use of the china health and nutrition survey chns data this paper first proposes 10 different indices to measure nutrition improvement and dietary change from different perspectives and then adopts semiparametric panel data models to capture the complicated nonlinear relationship between these nutrition indices and income growth while controlling for other variables parametrically this enables us to directly predict the nutrition improvement and dietary change at different income levels from different aspects this paper particularly finds that nutrition improvement and dietary change will continue in china but will slow down in the future with further income growth

income distribution and macroeconomics this paper analyzes the role of wealth distribution in macroeconomics through investment in human capital it is shown that in the presence of credit markets imperfections and indivisibilities in investment in human capital the initial distribution of wealth affects aggregate output and investment both in the short and in the long run as there are multiple steady states this paper therefore provides an additional explanation for the persistent differences in per capita output across countries furthermore the paper shows that cross country differences in macroeconomic adjustment to aggregate shocks can be attributed among other factors to differences in wealth and income distribution across countries

family model of contributions to non profit organizations and labour supply in this article a model is presented in which the family decides the labour supply of both spouses and their time donations to non profit organizations for the estimation spanish data was used which showed that family size and pre school children influence decisions made about time distribution of husband and wife women with fewer family responsibilities work longer hours and donate more time whilst the effect on men is the contrary also monetary donations by the family are directly related to time donations by the spouses

price coordination in distribution channels a dynamic perspective abstract in this study we investigate two important questions related to dynamic pricing in distribution channels i are coordinated pricing decisions efficient in a context where prices have carry over effects on demand ii should firms practice a skimming or a penetration strategy if they choose to coordinate or to decentralize their activities to answer these questions we consider a differential game that takes place in a bilateral monopoly where the past retail prices paid by consumers contribute to the building of a reference price the latter is used by consumers as a benchmark to evaluate the value of the product and by firms to decide whether to adopt a skimming or a penetration strategy we then compute and compare strategies total channel profits and individual profits under vertical integration and decentralization at steady state and along the optimal time paths one of our main findings states that for some values of the initial reference price there is a time interval where channel decentralization performs better than coordination during this transition period at least one of the channel members could be tempted to end his cooperation especially if he is not farsighted and if there are no binding agreements with the other channel partners

the labour supply behaviour of self employed solo practice physicians this paper investigates the empirical labour supply behaviour of self employed solo practice physicians the specification of the empirical labour supply equation is based on a model of constrained utility maximizing behaviour that recognizes the physician makes work leisure choices based on an endogenous shadow wage and faces a nonlinear budget constraint the findings suggest that the typical self employed solo practice male physician operates on the upward sloping portion of the labour supply curve and is relatively unresponsive to changes in marginal hourly medical practice earnings and non practice income

the production and consumption of the arts a view of cultural economics by most criteria the arts comprise a significant area of economic activity in 1990 american consumers spent 5 billion on admissions to theater opera galleries and other nonprofit arts events more than on admissions to spectator sports 4 1 billion on movie admissions and 17 6 billion on books because of difficulties in defining boundaries around the arts industry statistics on its contribution to gdp are problematical but available data suggest that the arts theater music opera dance visual arts crafts literature community and folk arts account for a little under one percent of the united states gdp and a little over one percent of the civilian labor force if the net is cast somewhat wider defining the cultural industries as including the arts motion pictures radio and television and printing and publishing an aggregate value of output can be measured for 1988 of about 130 billion or 2 5 percent of gdp national endowment for the arts 1992 likewise support for the arts and culture in the u s through government and voluntary contributions amounts to a significant annual commitment of funds combined federal state and local government expenditure on the arts and museums in 1987 amounted to about 0 8 billion and in 1990 6 4 percent of charitable giving was channeled to arts culture and the humanities yielding a total level of voluntary contributions in these areas of 7 9 billion in that year private markets in the arts too are of significant size looking at the international art trade for example we can note that the worldwide net sales of the two major art auction houses christie s and sotheby s amounted to 6 6 billion in 1989 90 1 yet despite the fact that production and consumption of art have been elements of human activity for longer than most of the phenomena that have en

preservation technology investment for deteriorating inventory abstract the objective of this study is to develop a deteriorating inventory policy when the retailer invests on the preservation technology to reduce the rate of product deterioration a solution procedure is presented to determine an optimal replenishment cycle shortage period order quantity and preservation technology cost such that the total profit per unit time is maximized a numerical example and sensitivity analysis are presented to illustrate the model

do fast food chains price discriminate on the race and income characteristics of an area this article reports tests for differences in prices charged by fast food restaurants that serve markets with customers of widely divergent incomes and ethnic backgrounds the data contain detailed prices on items sold at over 400 burger king wendy s kfc and roy rogers restaurants in new jersey and pennsylvania locations i find significant differences in price based on the race and income characteristics of a zip code region when income and cost differences are taken into account meal prices rise approximately 5 for a 50 rise in the black population

environmental innovations and profitability how does it pay to be green an empirical analysis on the german innovation survey much of the empirical literature analysing the relation between environmental innovation and competitiveness has focused on the question whether it pays to be green we differentiate between different types of environmental innovations which will be disentangled in those aiming at reducing the negative externalities and those allowing for efficiency increases and cost savings what we analyze is at first the extent to which these two typologies have impacts on firms profitability with opposite signs and secondly whether the motivations driving the adoption of those innovations make the difference in terms of economic gains we find empirical evidence that both the typology of environmental innovation and the driver of their adoption affect the sign of the relationship between competitiveness and environmental performance the empirical strategy is based on a sample of german firms and makes use of a merge of two waves of the mannheim innovation panel in 2011 and 2009 that allow overcoming some endogeneity issues which may arise in a cross section setting

a multi research method approach to studying environmental sustainability in retail operations abstract retailers increasingly incorporate environmental protection measures to improve their value chain operations although environmental sustainability in operations management has been widely examined in the manufacturing context its adoption in the retail industry is largely recent in this study we explore through both qualitative and quantitative approaches in the real retail context what green practices retailers have put in place to meet the needs of diverse stakeholders and examine whether or not such practices improve retailers financial performance undertaking this study in two phases we first conducted a secondary data analysis of 345 publicly traded retailers in japan to identify the green retail operations gros that retailers have adopted we presented empirical evidence on the performance impact of gros adoption and analyzed changes in the performance before and after gros adoption as measured by return on assets roa in the second phase we carried out an empirical study with survey data collected from 141 retailers in hong kong to validate the measurement of gros and examined the financial implications of gros adoption we conclude that there is a positive impact of gros adoption on firms financial performance in the retail industry

where are we now on cultural economics a survey of progress in cultural economics since its virtual birth in 1966 with the publication of baumol and bowen performing arts the economic dilemma distinguishing between theoretical progress and empirical progress following in the footsteps of towse s recent anthology of classic papers in cultural economics i address nine topics that between them cover the subject namely 1 taste and taste formation 2 demand and supply studies 3 the media industries 4 the art market 5 the economic history of the arts 6 the labour market for artists 7 baumol s cost disease 8 non profit arts organisations and 9 public subsidies to the arts i conclude that there has been some theoretical and empirical progress in the treatment of almost all these topics

examining green consumerism motivational drivers does premium price and demographics matter to green purchasing environmental deterioration caused by consumers non sustainable consumption pattern is putting a strain on the environment and is hindering sustainable development in order to impede this effect and promote a more sustainable economy one solution is to reduce or shift consumption from conventional products to green products the unfortunate reality indicates that inadequate information on how to promote consumers green behavioral intention is slowing the growth of green markets such inadequacy appears as a prevailing obstacle facing firms while developing segments and communicating strategies for effectively promoting green products the mentioned impact is more prevailing and most experienced in countries like malaysia hence consumers behavioral intentions must be better understood in order to strengthen knowledge about fostering green purchases this study aims to determine the motivational factors that influence green purchasing intention and simultaneously assess the moderator roles of the premium price and demographic characteristics given that consumers degree of greenness varies a survey was administered and a total of 405 usable questionnaires were obtained structural equation modeling sem was applied to test the hypotheses results indicate that environmental attitude eco label and cultural value man nature orientation significantly influence the green purchase intention the result also indicates that the premium price has no moderating effect denying its role as one of the main barriers for consumers to walk their talk as it has previously been reported by studies and opinion polls in addition the findings revealed that education level and gender have a significant positive moderation effect this suggests that green purchase intentions motivational factors are greater among highly educated individuals especially with female consumers in particular this study contributes to the understanding of the main factors that motivate consumers intention to purchase green products in malaysia it also offers insights and discusses implementations for manufacturers marketers and policy makers concerned with the drivers that motivate consumers green purchasing intentions which require different marketing plan and strategy than conventional products

purchasing behaviour of higher and lower income shoppers a look at breakfast cereals scanner data for breakfast cereals are used to estimate demand elasticities for six supermarket stores in two distinct socioeconomic areas three stores are in lowincome locations and three are in high income locations a time series cross section model is estimated for five product categories across six cross sections over forty two weeks results show lower income shoppers to have more elastic demands for four of the five product categories private label cold cereals the top ten brands of cold cereals all other brands of cold cereals and hot cereals price is not statistically significant for a fifth product category snack cereals

welfare consequences of food prices increases evidence from rural mexico this paper presents an analysis of the welfare consequences of recent increases in food prices in mexico using micro level data we estimate a quaids model of demand for food using data collected to evaluate the conditional cash transfer program oportunidades we show how the poor have been affected by the recent increases and changes in relative prices of foods we also show how a conditional cash transfer program provides a means of alleviating the problem of increasing staple prices and simulate the impact of such a policy on household welfare and consumer demand we contrast this policy with alternative policy responses such as price subsidies which distort relative prices and are less well targeted

price search in a product market regressions using panel data on grocery purchases show lower purchase costs are significantly associated with a larger number of stores visited per week there is also evidence but somewhat weaker of diminishing gains from such search an economic model of the determinants of search suggests that prices paid quantities purchased and number of store visits are interrelated a view supported by results of estimating a proposed simultaneous equations model

quality quantity and spatial variation of price back to the bog abstract estimating potential effects of price reforms is a key issue for many developing countries demand studies increasingly use household survey data on budget shares which vary with quantity price and quality if quality response to price is ignored estimated price elasticities of quantity demand conflate responses on quantity and quality margins our review finds over 80 of published studies using budget shares from household survey data have this error we use survey data from vietnam with prices and qualities observed over space to directly estimate the price elasticity of quality this is much larger than what is derived from the income elasticity of quality based on the deaton 1988 separability restrictions across the 45 items we study the own price elasticity of quantity demand is overstated by a factor of four on average if the response of quality to price is ignored

calculating rural urban food price differentials from unit values in household expenditure surveys a comparison with existing methods and a new procedure while purchasing power parity ppp between countries has received a great deal of attention ppp calculations within countries have received less attention the idea that one unit of currency has the same purchasing power in all regions in large countries is false this paper addresses this limitation by proposing a methodology for calculating rural urban ppp in india the paper introduces a concept of item specific ppp that exploits the analogy with an item specific equivalence scale the methodology relies on demographically varying preferences to estimate ppp the results underline the need to incorporate spatial differences in ppp calculations in countries with heterogeneous preferences copyright 2012 oxford university press

do the poor pay more for food evidence from the united kingdom does food cost more for low income households this paper compares two well known approaches to answering this question i find that quantity discounts for a broad range of foods are statistically significant and economically important however quantity discounting does not lead to the poor paying more for food i find that the poor pay less than average for the food they purchase this is explained by the poor spending a greater share of their income on foods where quantity discounting occurs copyright 2010 oxford university press

cooperative strategies for sustainability in a decentralized supply chain with competing suppliers abstract in today s global market organizations increasingly recognize that they must address the issue of sustainability in their operations in addition the decision making processes surrounding sustainable supply chain management are raising a wide range of theories and claims about how best to address the issue in this study mathematical modeling is used to analyze managerial decision making in terms of improving sustainability in a decentralized supply chain with two competing suppliers firstly the concept of managerial decision making for competing suppliers is introduced next the mechanism used in the selection of cooperative strategies is described and the decisions related to demand energy efficiency and profits are analyzed in different scenarios of cooperative strategy combinations also lump sum transfer contracts are designed for supply chain coordination an experimental test of an automobile supply chain in china illustrates the impacts of competition intensity on profits the energy efficiency of environmentally friendly products and consumer surplus the analysis indicates that the sustainability of the supply chain can be efficiently enhanced through cooperative strategies and parameter adjustments while tradeoffs should be made by the policy maker before any cooperative strategy combination is advocated this study extends and complements existing literature with regard to how it is possible to improve sustainability in a competitive environment through cooperative supply chain strategies and parameter adjustments i e enhancing the price of environmentally friendly products lowering the supplier s share of instinct demand potential and lowering the manufacturer s fixed cost related to energy efficiency

multiple job holding the artist s labour supply approach this article analyses a labour supply model in which individuals maximize a utility function that depends on leisure time consumption and time devoted to an activity that is termed artistic this activity may generate income that depends nonlinearly on hours dedicated to it the individual can also work in the labour market an activity that does not increase utility by itself in exchange for an hourly wage and obtain income not related to hours conditions are obtained that sort individuals into two groups part time and full time artists deriving their labour supply functions in both activities the predictions of the model are tested empirically using a sample of musicians from a uruguayan performing rights society increases in outside wages drive part time artists out of the labour market but no significant increase in arts hours is detected higher nonlabour income also reduces nonarts work time of part time artists but does not have a significant impact in their arts hours conversely arts

explicit solutions of optimization models and differential games with nonsmooth asymmetric reference price effects models in marketing with asymmetric reference effects lead to nonsmooth optimization problems and differential games which cannot be solved using standard methods in this study we introduce a new method for calculating explicitly optimal strategies open loop equilibria and closed loop equilibria of such nonsmooth problems application of this method to the case of asymmetric reference price effects with loss aversive consumers leads to the following conclusions 1 when the planning horizon is infinite after an introductory stage the optimal price stabilizes at a steady state price which is slightly below the optimal price in the absence of reference price effects 2 the optimal strategy is the same as in the symmetric case but with the loss parameter determined by the initial reference price 3 competition does not change the qualitative behavior of the optimal strategy 4 adopting an appropriate constant price strategy results in a minute decline in profits

do the poor pay more retail food prices in northeast brazil i malnutrition poverty and food prices research on food consumption and nutritional status in brazil based primarily on the large nationwide estudo nacional da despesa familiar endef survey of 1974 75 appears to have established that protein calorie malnutrition is widespread in the country and that it is due principally to poverty rather than cultural or educational factors 1 dietary knowledge and habits do help account for malnutrition especially among very young children but many families incomes are simply too low to purchase an adequate diet even if nutrients were obtained at minimal cost and were adequately distributed among family members both malnutrition and poverty are concentrated in northeastern brazil and are found among urban squatter populations as well as in rural areas

the impact of reference price effects on the profitability of price promotions this paper investigates the impact of reference price effects on retailer price promotions and describes why these effects can make promoting profitable first we analyze the profit impact of reference price effects generated by a single period of promotion the promotion can increase profit if the gain that these effects create in the promotion period outweighs the loss they create in future periods we then describe how retailers can estimate the optimal strategy of recurring promotions that maximizes profits from reference price effects over a time horizon examples of such strategies are presented for a retailer selling a national brand of peanut butter we obtain insights into how promotion prices timing and profits are affected by changes in costs interest rates consumers reactions to reference price effects and error in estimates used in the model the retailer s optimal reaction to a trade deal is also examined this strategy involves a phase of increased promotion activity sandwiched between phases of decreased activity we explain these results using the effects described in the single period model

prices and unit values in poverty measurement and tax reform analysis researchers often use unit values household expenditures on a commodity divided by the quantity purchased as proxies for market prices when calculating poverty lines and estimating consumer demand equations such proxies are often needed because community price surveys in developing economies are either absent or suffer quality problems however using unit values may result in biases due to measurement error and quality effects in a household survey experiment information on prices was obtained in three ways from unit values from a market price survey and from the opinions of householders who were shown pictures of items and asked to report the local price the three sets of price data are used to calculate poverty lines estimate price elasticities and analyze marginal tax reforms there are substantial biases when unit values are used as a proxy for market price even when sophisticated correction methods are applied performance was better for the price opinions of household members the results highlight the importance of price collection methods and the need to consider the wider costs of having potentially unreliable community level price data

do multinationals deteriorate developing countries export prices the impact of fdi on net barter terms of trade this paper explores the economic relationship between foreign direct investment fdi to developing countries and the export prices of the latter measured by terms of trade it is rst shown that economic theory suggests such a relationship for various reasons but is inconclusive about the direction of the eect to address this open issue empirically i analyze data on more than 50 developing countries throughout the period 1980 2008 using robust dynamic panel data methods the results show that fdi had an economically relevant and statistically signicant positive impact on developing countries net barter terms of trade a higher level of education in the developing country fosters this eect

the food system transformation in developing countries a disaggregate demand analysis for fruits and vegetables in vietnam abstract food systems in developing countries are currently undergoing a rapid transformation towards high value products and modern supply chains while supply side aspects of this transformation have been analyzed previously issues of consumer demand have received much less attention this article analyses demand patterns for fresh fruits and vegetables in vietnam using household survey data and a demand systems approach demand for products from modern supply chains particularly supermarkets and non traditional imports is highly income elastic and the income effect is stronger than the impact of prices and supermarket penetration this highlights the importance of considering demand side aspects when projecting future trends our results imply a continued restructuring of the food sector in the further process of economic development

hicksian separability does not hold over space implications for the design of household surveys and price questionnaires abstract if relative prices of goods within a commodity group are constant hicksian separability lets the price of a single good represent the group price level this is relied on by price questionnaires used with household surveys in developing countries and when constructing temporal and spatial deflators methods of estimating demand systems from household survey data also rely on hicksian separability yet this restriction remains untested in cross sections we use unique data from vietnam with multiple specifications from within the same food groups to test if within group relative prices are constant over space the data firmly reject these restrictions some guidelines for survey design are discussed in terms of the characteristics of commodity groups that should be disaggregated and those that should have more elementary goods added to their linked price questionnaire

the global food crisis disaster opportunity or non event household level evidence from cote d ivoire summary using 2008 lsms data for cote d ivoire we study the welfare implications of the price increase of key imported staple food rice and consider the consumption smoothing effect of locally produced food and cash crop varieties while middle income urban households are adversely affected by rising rice prices relatively poor rural households benefit availability of local staple alternatives leads to further income redistribution from net consumers toward net producers of staples by contrast the ability to generate income from tropical cash crops not only improves the welfare of rural households but helps smooth the consumption of urban households

supplier integration green sustainability programs and financial performance of fashion enterprises under global financial crisis abstract fashion business is sensitive to economic situations and supplier integration si and green sustainability programs gsp are two timely issues in the fashion industry undoubtedly both si and gsp require significant resources and continuous commitment which affect cash flows and resource allocation of the fashion enterprises how si and gsp affect the financial performance of the fashion enterprises under the global financial crisis is hence an important issue motivated by the above relationship and based on publicly available data this study aims to explore empirically i the impact of si and gsp adoption on the financial performance of fashion enterprises ii the ability of si and gsp adoption to alleviate adversity owing to financial crisis and iii the moderating effect brought by fashion content on the above relationships the findings reveal that i both si and gsp adoption can significantly improve the financial performance of the fashion enterprises ii both si and gsp adoption help to mitigate the adverse effect of financial tsunami on the fashion enterprise s financial performance and iii fashion content has a moderating effect for fashion enterprises which sell fashionable items i e fashionable group to increase profits through a higher level of si or executing gsp to act against financial tsunami managerial implications and insights are discussed

the demand for meat and fish in spain urban and rural areas abstract the aim of the paper is to explain to what extent meat consumption patterns in spain are different in rural and urban areas and which are the factors explaining differences and similarities a demand system using cross section data from the latest spanish national survey has been estimated unit values have been used instead of market prices and price and quality effects have been obtained the main conclusion is that meat consumption patterns in urban and rural areas are not really different as regards economic factors some small income and price effect differences have been found specially for fresh pork and fish responses to changes in income and price are higher for fresh pork consumption in rural areas and for fish in urban areas

price unit value and quality demanded abstract given the paucity of quality price data it is common to rely on unit value average expenditure per unit as a proxy for price but this is an imperfect proxy if households respond to price increases by substituting to lower quality goods this paper draws on survey data that contain both unit value and price to estimate the severity of quality substitution in indonesia finding that it is prevalent the paper next calculates price elasticities that correct for quality substitution evaluating and ultimately rejecting a commonly used method for calculating price elasticities using only unit value data finally it demonstrates that quality substitution can result in biased price elasticities even when price is perfectly observed

semiparametric econometrics a survey summary semiparametric econometric models contain both parametric and nonparametric components reflecting in some fashion what has been learned from economic theory and previous empirical experience and what remains unknown they raise such questions as how well the parametric component can be estimated and how to construct rules of inference with good statistical properties the paper attempts to survey the econometric and most relevant statistical literature on semiparametric inference and includes a partial bibliography

prices and living standards evidence for rwanda abstract we review the explanations of the statistical relationship between spatial price indices and real living standards then using data from several seasons in rural rwanda we show that these variables are negatively associated hinting at price discrimination against the poor in that case policies permanently improving of market functioning may simultaneously improve efficiency and equity moreover under a hypothesis of weak association of nominal living standards and price indices we derive simplified formulae for social welfare indicators these formulae depend only on a small number of sample statistics obtainable from separate publications for prices and living standards

the short run impact of import bans on poverty the case of nigeria 2008 2012 the nigerian government uses food import prohibition as part of policies that seeks to protect existing domestic producers and reduce the country s dependence on imports this paper argues that such policies have negative effects on net consumers of such products due to higher prices with 70 percent of poor households budget spent on food and about 13 percent of the total budget devoted to products subject to import bans poor households are vulnerable to such trade policies prices of some import prohibited food products are found to be higher than what they would be in the absence of such bans the elimination of import bans is estimated to reduce national poverty rates by as much as 2 6 percentage points

preferences spatial prices and inequality abstractthis study examines the effect of prices on inequality in rural india during the period of economic reforms and beyond 1999 2000 2009 2010 it proposes a framework for calculating exact price indices based on the exact affine stone index easi demand system and shows its usefulness by calculating spatial prices and regionally varying temporal prices that allow for both differences in preferences between states and over time the study finds that the nature of inflation has been regressive during 1999 2000 2004 2005 and progressive during 2004 2005 2009 2010 and that the effects of temporal price inflation and spatial prices on inequality are qualitatively different

the value of time spent in price comparison shopping survey and experimental evidence the value that consumers place on time spent in price comparison shopping is central to the economics of information theory and models of consumers search behavior yet few empirical studies have examined consumers subjective value of time building on gary becker s work this article presents two tests of a model of the subjective value of time in an effort to explain consumers subjective value of time while they are price comparison shopping the model introduces perceived enjoyment of shopping as a new explanatory variable the findings reveal that respondents incorporate both wage rates and perceived enjoyment of price comparison shopping into their subjective value of time

quadratic engel curves and consumer demand this paper presents a model of consumer demand that is consistent with the observed expenditure patterns of individual consumers in a long time series of expenditure surveys and is also able to provide a detailed welfare analysis of shifts in relative prices a nonparametric analysis of consumer expenditure patterns suggests that engel curves require quadratic terms in the logarithm of expenditure while popular models of demand such as the translog or the almost ideal demand systems do allow flexible price responses within a theoretically coherent structure they have expenditure share engel curves that are linear in the logarithm of total expenditure we derive the complete class of integrable quadratic logarithmic expenditure share systems a specification from this class is estimated on a large pooled data set of u k households models that fail to account for engel curvature are found ro generate important distortions in the patterns of welfare losses associated with a tax increase

price dispersion and accessibility a case study of fast food this study examines spatial variation in the price and accessibility of fast food across a major urban area we use novel data on the price of a representative fast food meal and the location of fast food restaurants belonging to one of three major chains in the district of columbia and its surrounding suburbs these data are used to test a structural model of spatial competition the results of this study are easily interpreted and compared with a past analysis we find that spatial differences in costs and demand conditions drive variation in the number of firms operating in a market which in turn affects prices

the quantity and variety of households meat purchases a censored demand system approach this study investigates the demand for 10 disaggregated meat products by u s households a censored demand system which imposes budget constraints in both observed and latent shares is estimated along with a detailed explanation of the estimation procedure additional details about the methodology not provided in previous studies should help researchers to empirically apply the model an innovation of the study is to introduce the censored demand system model for studying the variety of a household s food purchases most households buy between seven and eight different products and hardly change the variety of their purchases with changes in meat expenditure