bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Price and Quality in the California Wine Industry: An Empirical Investigation
Authors: Lima Tony 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThis paper examines price and quality in the California wine industry using medals won in nine tasting events in 1995 as indexes of quality. For each tasting event, there were four possible medals: double gold, gold, silver, and bronze. Using stepwise least squares regression analysis, we estimate hedonic price functions for the 1884 wines in our sample treating quality as exogenous to price. We also look at results for some wine types, including chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. The results are largely as expected. The San Francisco Wine Competition appears to be the best predictor of quality with the Orange County and Sacramento (California State Fair) competitions the second best predictors of quality. (JEL Classifi cation: D4, L6)
“Petit Déjeuner Compris” – Is It Really Free? Evidence from French and Italian Hotels
Authors: Johnson George E. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractDespite the old claim in economics that “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” some of the recent work in behavioral economics and in other fields of study implies the contrary. In this paper I study whether French and Italian hotels actually provide a “free” breakfast when, as is done by many hotels around the world, its provision is included in the room price. The data indicate, using both cross-sectional comparisons and hotel-specific changes in breakfast provision, that there is no such thing as a free breakfast. In France and Italy hotels that offer, respectively, “petit dejeuner compris” and “compresa la prima colazione” appear to raise their room prices by 10 to 15 percent.
Is Globalization Good for Wine Drinkers in the United States?
Authors: Gokcekus Omer , Fargnoli Andrew 
Published: June 2012

AbstractTo determine whether globalization is good for wine drinkers in the U.S., we examine the Wine Spectator's annual Top 100 lists, published since 1988. During this period, the average real price for these wines decreases from $43 to $26. Quality is consistent at around 93 points. Variety increases from six to twelve countries; the share of countries dominating the early lists declines from 95% to 75% over time. Our regression analysis indicates that when a New-New World wine replaces an Old World one, the average real price of the Top 100 list falls by 2.5%. (JEL Classification: F120, F140, C200)“My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne.” (John Maynard Keynes) (Harod, 1951, p. 15)
What Determines Port Wine Prices?
Authors: Viana Rui Couto , Rodrigues Lúcia Lima 
Published: June 2012

AbstractIn this study, we estimate a cross-sectional hedonic price function for Port wines in order to determine the price influence of several Port wine characteristics. Drawing on a large sample of more than 14,000 sales from the biggest Port wine firms we find that market prices can be explained by objective characteristics such as age, type of Port and type of brand appearing on the bottle label and subjective characteristics such as firm reputation. The Port type is the main price determinant. (JEL Classification: C21, Q11)
Consumer Sensory Evaluations of Wine Quality: The Respective Influence of Price and Country of Origin
Authors: Veale Roberta , Quester Pascale 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThe purpose of the study was to investigate the respective influences of price and country of origin as extrinsic cues on consumer evaluations of wine quality when all intrinsic cues are experienced through sensory perception. Taste testing experiments were conducted (N = 263) using Chardonnay as the test product in a 3 (country of origin, COO) × 3 (price) × 3 (acid level) conjoint analysis fractional factorial design. Price and COO were both found to be more important contributors to perception of wine quality than taste. Reliance on extrinsic cues was found to remain extremely robust even when all intrinsic cues were available through sensory experience for respondent evaluation. The research demonstrated that even when evaluating a product through consumption, consumer belief in the price/value schema dominates quality assessment. These findings mean that marketers cannot assume that intrinsic product attributes, even when experienced, will be weighted and interpreted accurately by consumers. The research significantly advances our understanding of consumers' use of extrinsic cues (price and COO specifically), and their respective influence in their determination of both expected and experienced quality. (JEL Classification: Q11, D12, M31)
Bordeaux Wine as a Financial Investment
Authors: Sanning Lee W. , Shaffer Sherrill , Sharratt Jo Marie 
Published: June 2012

AbstractFor repeat transactions data from monthly auction hammer prices, we analyze the level and quality of Bordeaux wine returns using the Fama-French Three-Factor Model and the Capital Asset Pricing Model. Returns average up to 0.75% per month above those predicted by these models. Further, investment grade wines benefit from low exposure to market risk factors, thus offering a valuable dimension of portfolio diversification. These findings are consistent with simple theoretical considerations and support a documented growing interest in wine investments (JEL Classification: G11.G12).
Determinants of Argentinean Wine Prices in the U.S.
Authors: San Martín Guillermo J. , Troncoso Javier L. , Brümmer Bernhard 
Published: June 2012

AbstractA hedonic price function for Argentinean wines in the U.S market is estimated in order to evaluate the effect of the most important attributes of wine on price. Results show that labeling practices and the choice of the right wine quality attributes are far more influential on price than expert panel opinions or oenological wine improvements such as age. (JEL Classification: Q11, C21, D12)
Wine Markets in China: Assessing the Potential with Supermarket Survey Data
Authors: Lee Hyunok , Huang Jikun , Rozelle Scott , Sumner Daniel 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThe emergence of grape wine as a mainstream alcoholic beverage in China is relatively new. However, rapidly increasing wine consumption in China provides a significant trade potential for the United States and other wine exporting countries. This paper investigates the Chinese wine market using retailer data with a focus on imported wines. Supermarkets are identified as major retail outlets for foreign wines, and this paper uses data from a recent supermarket wine survey in China. Our data indicate that about half of our sample stock foreign wines. On average, 21 percent of total wine shelf space is allocated to foreign wines and larger stores are associated with larger shares of shelf space for foreign wines. Among foreign wines, French wine dominates. Of 31 supermarkets that sell foreign wines, 26 stores carry French wine, and in all but two of these stores more than half of the foreign wine shelf space is devoted to French wine. Australia, Chile, Italy and the United States follow in terms of number of stores carrying wines. Supermarkets in our sample allocate most of their shelf space to red wine for both domestic (93%) and foreign (82%) wines. The average median price for foreign wines (94 yuans per bottle) was more than double the equivalent price for domestic wines (42 yuans). (JEL Classification: N55, Q13, Q19)
Brokers as Experts in the French Wine Industry
Authors: Fares M'hand 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThe increasing industrialization of the wine supply chain is often associated with a greater vertical coordination. Our paper shows that a spot market institutional arrangement like brokerage can still be a relevant coordination mechanism to mitigate the contractual hazards due to quality problems. Indeed, a broker can be viewed as an expert that can help the merchant to monitor the grower's wine quality process. More precisely, if the merchant cannot credibly monitor the wine making process, it is Pareto improving to delegate this task to a broker. (JEL Classification: D82, L80, M12)
Modeling Long-term Commodities: the Development of a Simulation Model for the South African Wine Industry within a Partial Equilibrium Framework
Authors: Reynolds Sanri , Meyer Ferdinand , Cutts Michela , Vink Nick 
Published: June 2012

AbstractEconometric demand and supply models of agricultural commodities and crops have been around for a long time with extensive research and adaptations being made in the grain and livestock sectors. This much attention has, however, not been afforded to long term commodities. This paper presents a partial equilibrium framework for modeling long term commodities using the South African wine industry as an example. The model structure is presented and two different approaches to closing the model are compared. The usefulness of the model is tested in the form of baseline projections and the analysis of a typical “what if” question. (JEL Classification: D5, L66, Q11)
A Proposed System for Awarding Medals at a Major U.S. Wine Competition
Authors: Cicchetti Domenic V. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThe objective of this research is to devise a reliable and accurate scoring algorithm for awarding medals at a major U.S. wine competition that was described earlier by Hodgson (2008). The new algorithm is comprised of a two-tiered method that considers an award on the basis of a total medal score averaged across four judges per each evaluated wine; and a reliability algorithm that grades the degree of inter-judge reliability according to the following criteria: <70% = Poor or Unacceptable; 70%–79% = Fair; 80%–89% = Good; and 90%–100% = Excellent agreement (Cicchetti, 2001). The method has advantages over a previous scoring method that based its decision upon incorrect estimates of majority opinion; and unacceptable levels of inter-judge agreement. (JEL Classification: C1, L15, Q13)
The Dynamics of Advertising and Contract Choice on the Champagne Wine Market
Authors: Lanette Hervé , Steichen Daniel 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThere are two main players in the Champagne wine industry; grape growers and Champagne houses. The former grow grapes and either produce their own Champagne wine or sell their fruit to Champagne houses. The latter only produce Champagne wine and do not grow grapes. However, Champagne houses invest heavily in advertisements to establish and maintain their brand's reputation. The grape market is characterized by the dominance of long-term supply contracts over spot contracts. Drawing on various theoretical models we suggest that the Champagne houses' advertising strategy and its associated positive externalities (spillover effects) on grape growers is a way of stabilizing vertical relations, i.e., keeping grape growers from producing Champagne wine themselves and thus maintaining a certain degree of monopoly power. (JEL Classification: C78, M37, D86, L14, Q18)
Why is there a Home Bias? A Case Study of Wine
Authors: Friberg Richard , Paterson Robert W. , Richardson Andrew D. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractDomestic products have a disproportionately high market share on many goods markets. We examine the contribution of preferences to such “home bias”, using detailed data on wine sales in New Hampshire (weekly sales by brand by store for one year). In counterfactual simulations, where we use the same set of products as currently available, the U.S. market share falls from 58 percent to 38 percent if all country-of-origin effects are set equal. Home bias on this market is not explained by higher marginal costs for imports or by lesser store coverage of imported brands. The evidence rather points to higher foreign fixed costs of entry, coupled with a preference for U.S. wines, as the main sources for the high domestic market share. (JEL Classification: F12, F14, L13, L66)
Wine in Your Knapsack?
Authors: Conrad Jon M. , Gómez Miguel I. , Lamadrid Alberto J. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractWe pose several Knapsack Problems (KPs) to select the optimal subset of wines subject to budget and quantity constraints. The first problem seeks the subset of wines, from a single cultivar (zinfandel) that maximizes the sum of ratings subject to a budget constraint. We modify this problem by adding an equality constraint on the number of bottles that must be chosen. The third problem seeks to maximize the sum of ratings from three different cultivars (cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, and zinfandel) subject to a budget constraint and then a budget and minimum bottle constraints for each cultivar. The rating maximization problem may have multiple solutions. We also pose two expenditure minimization problems, subject to achieving the maximum sum of ratings. We extend the model by defining an integer choice problem, that allows multiple purchases of the same wine, and by accounting for possible non-linearities between wine ratings and utilities. Applications of this model include procurement decisions for tastings, special events or building a personal wine cellar. (JEL Classification: C61 D12)
Wine Quality, Wine Prices, and the Weather: Is Napa “Different”?
Authors: Ramirez Carlos D. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThis paper uses a large longitudinal database (nearly 6,000 observations) of all cabernet sauvignon wines rated byWine Spectatorfrom 1970 to 2004 in the Napa Valley region of California to investigate whether a quality-weather relationship and a price-weather relationship exist and, if so, whether they occur in a linear, quadratic, or log-linear fashion. The paper examines three different models of wine rating and wine prices to study the effect of weather variations. The results suggest that the weather affects both quality and wine prices, but the results are much stronger for prices than for ratings. A log-linear model can explain nearly 92 percent of the variation in wine prices, but only about 28 percent of the variation in wine ratings. (JEL Classification: C23, Q54)
The Importance of Australian Corporate Brand and Grape Varietal Wines: Hedonic Pricing in the British Columbia Wine Market
Authors: Carew Richard , Florkowski Wojciech J. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractA hedonic analysis is applied to a unique data set of Australian wines imported by the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch. The data included the important corporate red wine brands produced in Australia. Hedonic price functions are estimated for red Australian wines to show how price premia associated with the attributes of wine brands including the grape variety and alcohol content differ by corporate brands. Results show the positive effects on price of highly reputable brands, positive effect of grape variety Shiraz, and premia for alcohol content. (JEL Classification: D49, L15, L66, QII)
Wine as an Alternative Asset Class
Authors: Masset Philippe , Henderson Caroline 
Published: June 2012

AbstractUsing a dataset that spans the period 1996 to 2007 and contains transaction prices for all reported auctions at the Chicago Wine Company, we analyze how the prices of high-end wines have evolved during this time period. The best wines according to characteristics like vintage, rating and ranking earn higher returns and tend to have a lower variance than poorer wines. Nevertheless, the different categories of wines seem to follow a rather similar trend over the long run. Wine returns are only slightly correlated with other assets and can consequently be used to reduce the risk of an equity portfolio. Wine looks even more attractive when the investor also has concerns about the skewness of his portfolio. However, the part to be invested in wine is reduced once the kurtosis is included into the analysis. Finally, it seems advisable to diversify across different wine categories as their short-run movements are partially independent of each other. First growths and wines rated as extraordinary by Robert Parker deliver the best tradeoff in terms of portfolio expected returns, variance, skewness and kurtosis for most investor preference settings under consideration. (JEL Classification: C60, G11, Q11)
Wine Investment and Portfolio Diversification Gains
Authors: Fogarty James J. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThe existing literature on the return to wine is mixed. Some studies have found wine to be an unattractive investment option and others have found wine to be an investment class that provides excess risk adjusted returns. However, provided the return to wine does not have a strong positive correlation with standard financial assets, even if the return to wine is low, it is possible that including wine in an investment portfolio will provide a diversification benefit. Here the repeat sales regression methodology is used to estimate the return to Australian wine, and the return is shown to be lower than for standard financial assets. Several measures are then used to show that despite the return to Australian wine being lower than the return to standard financial assets, wine does provide a modest diversification benefit. (JEL Classification: G11, G12)
Improving Experts' Wine Quality Judgments: Two Heads Are Better than One
Authors: Ashton Robert H. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractThis paper reports an analysis of data from the “Judgment of Paris,” the 1976 blind tasting of California and French wines that revolutionized the wine world. Using both empirical and analytical methods, I demonstrate that the wine quality judgments of the renowned experts who participated in the Paris tasting would have been improved simply by averaging the quality ratings of two or more of the judges. Moreover, I explore bothhow manyof the Paris judges should be included in the average andwhich onesthey should be. The results have implications for the practical issue of choosing judges to include in tasting panels that award prizes or provide expert advice to consumers, as well as for better understanding the variability in the price-quality association across hedonic wine pricing studies. (JEL Classification: C93)
W.S. Gosset and Some Neglected Concepts in Experimental Statistics: Guinnessometrics II
Authors: Ziliak Stephen T. 
Published: June 2012

AbstractStudent's exacting theory of errors, both random and real, marked a significant advance over ambiguous reports of plant life and fermentation asserted by chemists from Priestley and Lavoisier down to Pasteur and Johannsen, working at the Carlsberg Laboratory. One reason seems to be that William Sealy Gosset (1876–1937) aka “Student” – he of Student'st-table and test of statistical significance – rejected artificial rules about sample size, experimental design, and the level of significance, and took instead an economic approach to the logic of decisions made under uncertainty. In his job as Apprentice Brewer, Head Experimental Brewer, and finally Head Brewer of Guinness, Student produced small samples of experimental barley, malt, and hops, seeking guidance for industrial quality control and maximum expected profit at the large scale brewery. In the process Student invented or inspired half of modern statistics. This article draws on original archival evidence, shedding light on several core yet neglected aspects of Student's methods, that is, Guinnessometrics, not discussed by Ronald A. Fisher (1890–1962). The focus is on Student's small sample, economic approach to real error minimization, particularly in field and laboratory experiments he conducted on barley and malt, 1904 to 1937. Balanced designs of experiments, he found, are more efficient than random and have higher power to detect large and real treatment differences in a series of repeated and independent experiments. Student's world-class achievement poses a challenge to every science. Should statistical methods – such as the choice of sample size, experimental design, and level of significance – follow the purpose of the experiment, rather than the other way around? (JEL classification codes: C10, C90, C93, L66)
Reliability of Coulomb stress changes inferred from correlated uncertainties of finite‐fault source models
Authors: Woessner J. , Jónsson S. , Sudhaus H. , Baumann C. 
Published: June 2012

Static stress transfer is one physical mechanism to explain triggered seismicity. Coseismic stress‐change calculations strongly depend on the parameterization of the causative finite‐fault source model. These models are uncertain due to uncertainties in input data, model assumptions, and modeling procedures. However, fault model uncertainties have usually been ignored in stress‐triggering studies and have not been propagated to assess the reliability of Coulomb failure stress change (ΔCFS) calculations. We show how these uncertainties can be used to provide confidence intervals for co‐seismic ΔCFS‐values. We demonstrate this for the MW = 5.9 June 2000 Kleifarvatn earthquake in southwest Iceland and systematically map these uncertainties. A set of 2500 candidate source models from the full posterior fault‐parameter distribution was used to compute 2500 ΔCFS maps. We assess the reliability of the ΔCFS‐values from the coefficient of variation (CV) and deem ΔCFS‐values to be reliable where they are at least twice as large as the standard deviation (CV ≤ 0.5). Unreliable ΔCFS‐values are found near the causative fault and between lobes of positive and negative stress change, where a small change in fault strike causes ΔCFS‐values to change sign. The most reliable ΔCFS‐values are found away from the source fault in the middle of positive and negative ΔCFS‐lobes, a likely general pattern. Using the reliability criterion, our results support the static stress‐triggering hypothesis. Nevertheless, our analysis also suggests that results from previous stress‐triggering studies not considering source model uncertainties may have lead to a biased interpretation of the importance of static stress‐triggering.
Role of sea surface temperature and wind convergence in regulating convection over the tropical Indian Ocean
Authors: Meenu S. , Parameswaran K. , Rajeev K. 
Published: June 2012

The notions that (a) the frequency of occurrence of clouds is little affected by the sea surface temperature (SST) over the warm tropical oceans when it is maintained above ∼27.5°C and (b) over these regions the cloudiness is mainly governed by the large‐scale atmospheric dynamics, are well‐founded. This study investigates the association among SST, atmospheric wind divergence, vertical wind and cloudiness (convection) over the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the tropical Indian Ocean during different seasons. Analysis carried out on data from all the above regions during 1996–2008 shows that the cloudiness and cloud top altitude increase with SST for SST > 26.5°C and become saturated for SST in the range of 28.5–29.75°C. Further increases in SST reduce cloudiness. Similar variations are obtained by analyzing the data during the Asian summer monsoon season (June–September) alone. In contrast, the cloudiness and cloud top altitude increase with SST even for SST > 29.5°C during winter (December–February). The base value of SST for a significant enhancement in cloudiness during winter is found to be ∼1°C larger than that during the summer monsoon season. Seasonal variations in the SST‐dependence of cloudiness over warm oceanic regions are primarily due to changes in the large‐scale atmospheric circulation which plays a pivotal role in regulating cloudiness, especially through surface‐level moisture convergence, mid‐tropospheric vertical winds, upper tropospheric divergence and orographic effects in the upwind direction. Regions of the warmest SST, maximum surface wind convergence and the largest cloudiness are generally not collocated.