Consumer Welfare

The issues of consumer rights and consumer welfare are increasingly important, especially in the current economic climate in which the ability to make informed choices represents a real advantage in consumers’ daily life. In order to make their purchases with confidence, both in their country and abroad, consumers need easy access to precise information and to professional advice. Taking into account the fact that education and training are a strategic factor for a sustainable development through contribution to human capital development, within the Romania–Bulgaria Cross-Border Cooperation Program 2007–2013, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, Romania and the D. Tsenov Academy of Economics in Svisthov, Bulgaria decided to collaborate in the field “Cooperation on human resources development – joint development of skills and knowledge”, through the development of cross-border liaisons and exchanges between the two universities. Our objective is to bring up new methods of tr...

Purpose. To assess whether state-sponsored agricultural marketing programs had a positive influence on adult consumers’ fruit and vegetable consumption.

Design. Differences in fruit and vegetable consumption between 2000 and 2005 in states that initiated marketing campaigns during this period and those that did not were examined.

Subjects. A representative sample (n 5 237,320) of adults aged 18 and older from states with and without marketing programs was used. The study used data from the 2000 and 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Measures. The number of fruit and vegetable servings per week and the percentage of
respondents consuming five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day were examined.

Analysis. Between-subjects analysis of variance and logistic regression.

Results. In the absence of a marketing campaign, there was a significant decrease in fruit and vegetable consumption between 2000 and 2005. In states with campaigns, consumption remained stable or increased. Marketing effects were stronger for women than for men.

Conclusions. State-sponsored agricultural marketing programs had favorable effects on consumers’ consumption of fruits and vegetables.

This comment is a response to Al-Hamdani et al. (forthcoming) in this issue. The authors of that paper advocate plain packaging and warning label regulation for cannabis drawing on research from Canadian tobacco labelling and based on the public health dangers of cannabis. While we acknowledge the harmful

Happily, the revolution going on in the telecommunications industry is benign. Technological change and competition are making possible changes considered improbable even 15 years ago. The WTO Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services created a new regime for the world market. Now we must pay close attention to regulatory fundamentals.Every country serious about introducing competition finds that the transition from monopoly

This paper analyzes the impact of exclusive dealing contracts on the scope for upstream collusion in a framework with upstream and downstream imperfect compe- tition. We consider a repeated game of vertical contract choice in a double duopoly. We show that exclusive dealing contracts may either facilitate or deter upstream col- lusion, depending on the strength of competition at both

Recent legislative changes in the European Union have mandated nutrition
labeling for the majority of pre-packaged foods. This research
compared effects of several nutrition labeling formats on consumers’
food choices (i.e., the nutrition table, GDA 100 g/ml, and GDA portion).
We primarily focused on whether nutrition label information was
standardized to a fixed or varying comparison baseline. Fixed baselines
(e.g., 100 g/ml) allow consumers to make direct, relative comparisons
of products, while varying baselines (e.g., portion size) often require
consumers to undertake complex mathematical calculations. Findings
suggest that consumers’ food choices are likely to be healthier when
nutrition label information is presented on a fixed baseline. Gender
was found to moderate these effects such that women made healthier
choices—but only when the nutrition label baseline was fixed. Thus, the
type of comparison baseline is an important characteristic of nutrition
labels for public policymakers, public health officials, and academic
researchers to consider.

This research paper discusses the influence of new five year automobile policy announced by Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) in March 2016 for the period from 2016 to 2021 comparing with the old auto policy announced by the Government of Pakistan. The crucial point of this paper is to find the critical aspects of new auto policy and their impact on the profitability of major players in automobile industry of Pakistan. Main objectives of this policy are to help increase the volume with improved quality, catch the attention of investors, creating an extensive competitive environment, minimizing costs, technological improvement, satisfy all stakeholders through a Balance between tariffs and growth, customer satisfaction and Eliminating Monopoly of Existing Car Manufacturers. The important rationale of this paper is to have a look on the prevailing situation of automobile industry and the potential of this industry after the implementation of new auto-policy for 2016-21. It is to analyse whether this policy may influence profitability of the firms those have created their monopoly in this sector of Pakistan. The results of the study reveal that the profitability of major players of the automobile industry those were creating monopolies is not expected to decline even after the new policy. It may because of the trust of people on the local makes or expected ease in maintenance than those of the imported ones. However, the circumstances may change based on the customers' behavior that may cause the shift of their profit share to the New Entrants. Nevertheless, exploring the industrial alliance in this sector globally is of high importance for better quality, reasonable costs, fuel efficiency and striking designs. Various studies have been conducted to highlight the impacts of different policies announced by the

It is becoming increasingly evident that current patterns of consumption are not sustainable in the long term. Clearly, the need to persuade consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles has never been more urgent. Tbe present research contributes to our understanding of the effects of message framing by considering the potential moderating influence of consumer concern about global climate change within the context of sustainable consumption. The results of two experiments demonstrate that the US consumer's level of concern for the message-specific issues moderates the strength of the framing effect; effects are larger when concern about climate change is low. In addition, when concern is low, more negative framing and a prevention focus have more favorable persuasive effects. The implications of these findings for consumer welfare and public policy are discussed.

In this research, the authors examine the effects on preschool-aged childhood obesity rates associated with the
direct and moderating influence of fast food restaurant density levels, consumer poverty, and urbanization.
Results show that higher levels of fast food restaurant saturation are associated with increased levels of childhood
obesity in both urban and poor areas,with the largest negative effect of fast food availability on obesity occurring
in more economically disadvantaged, urban areas. Findings highlight why the societal impacts of targeting
vulnerable populations through corporate location selection strategies should be fully considered in social
marketing initiatives, especially given that unhealthy products with long term health risks are increasingly
accessible.

This paper analyzes policies affecting global groundnut-products markets. The new US groundnut policy is now a minor source of distortion in world markets where India and China stand out as the major distorters. We analyze and quantify the effects of groundnut-products trade liberalization on consumer welfare and producer income. Our analysis shows that African exporters would gain significantly from reductions

This paper analyses the effect of observed food price changes on household consumption (welfare) in Tanzania and from this simulates the welfare effect attributable to tax (tariffs and VAT) reforms. The three rounds of the Tanzania Household Budget Survey (1991/92, 2000/01 and 2007) are used to apply Deaton’s method based on median unit values (prices) and household budget shares. The

How front-of-package (FOP) nutrition icon systems affect product evaluations for more and less healthful objective nutrition profiles is a critical question facing food marketers, consumers, and the public health community. We propose a conceptually-based hierarchical continuum to guide predictions regarding the effectiveness of several FOP systems currently used in the marketplace. In Studies 1a and 1b, we compare the effects of a broad set of FOP icons on nutrition evaluations linked to health, accuracy of evaluations, and purchase intentions for a single product. Based on these findings, Studies 2 and 3 test the effects of two conceptually-different FOP icon systems in a retail laboratory in which consumers make comparative evaluations of multiple products at the retail shelf. While there are favorable effects of each system beyond control conditions with no FOP icons, results show that icons with an evaluative component that aid consumers’ interpretations generally provide greater benefits (particularly in product comparison contexts). We offer implications for consumer packaged goods marketers, retailers, and the public policy and consumer health communities.

When EU predecessor ECSC was created in 1951, the founding fathers had in mind to regulate competition in order to encourage market integration and protect economic freedom.

According to many academics, and as apparent from the legislation and case law, the EU has changed its competition enforcement policies in the course of time. It is pointed out that the objective of protecting economic freedom has largely switched to the protection of consumers.

Has this changed objective led to over-regulation of the area of vertical agreements, and by limiting the freedom of contractors in those agreements, has the EU eventually run contrary to the principle of the founding fathers’ view on regulating the market economy?

In three studies the authors seek to extend prior
research by examining the simultaneous effects of positive
(halos) and negative (horns) health-related inferences. How
the provision of objective point-of-purchase nutrition information
moderates the effects of these pre-existing health halo
and health horn effects on food evaluations and choices is
considered. In Study 1 predictions addressing the interaction
between a recently mandated objective nutrition disclosure
and initial product category healthfulness perceptions are
proposed and supported. Study 2 extends findings from this
initial online experiment to a more realistic retail environment,
and Study 3 addresses how different presentation exposure
contexts (on a package compared to a nutrition poster) affects
evaluations and how evaluations related to the information
disclosure are linked. Since the USDA recently required retailers
to provide nutrition information at the point-of-purchase
for beef and poultry products, these results have
important implications for consumers, producers, retailers,
and policy makers.

This paper examines the advent of the Web as a critical media tool in the promotion and sale of goods to consumers and the ethical questions it raises that are issues of public policy. We examine four traditional ethical rationales that guide organizational decision-making – utilitarianism, distributive justice, moral rights of man and relativism, further characterized as "ends-based", "equity-based", "rules-based" and "comparison-based" rationales – and we apply them to four moral dilemmas attributed to the proliferation of dot.com companies as they relate to consumer welfare. We find that ethical rationale in the New Media is largely non-existent, and where it exists, it is primarily reactive and driven by utilitarian or relativistic reasoning. We attribute this condition to the newness of the industry and to its economic context, representing, as it does, many characteristics embodied in the concept of the "perfect market." We offer some remedies to improve ethical conduct by e-business.

... 2002), while in 2000, a total of $2.7 billion was paid by pharmaceutical ... profits, and the consumer surplus generated from the biopharming application un-der each strategy. ... functions derived from information on prices, quantities, and elasticities.12 Under these assumptions the ...

Non-hypothetical valuations obtained from experimental auctions in three United States and two European locations were used to calculate welfare effects of introducing and labeling of genetically modified food. Under certain assumptions, we find that introduction of genetically modified food has been welfare enhancing, on average, for United States consumers but not so for Europeans and while mandatory labeling has been

Although social welfare and firms’ strategic innovation decisions are closely related through firms’ innovation activities, their relationship is still left unexplored. By measuring their relationship, we unveil how firms’ strategic decisions shape the overall demand structure and consumer welfare. Consequently, we empirically emphasize the role of public policy in inducing and directing innovation and shaping social welfare. We also suggest an empirical estimation structure for the study of firms’ strategic innovation behavior by adapting the model of endogenous choice of product quality. The empirical focus is on the pharmaceutical industry where technological innovation has huge impact on consumer welfare.