世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

In this book, Andrew Harvey sets out to provide a unified and comprehensive theory of structural time series models. Unlike the traditional ARIMA models, structural time series models consist explicitly of unobserved components, such as trends and seasonals, which have a direct interpretation. As a result the model selection methodology associated with structural models is much closer to econometric methodology. The link with econometrics is made even closer by the natural way in which the models can be extended to include explanatory variables and to cope with multivariate time series. From the technical point of view, state space models and the Kalman filter play a key role in the statistical treatment of structural time series models. The book includes a detailed treatment of the Kalman filter. This technique was originally developed in control engineering, but is becoming increasingly important in fields such as economics and operations research. This book is concerned primarily with modelling economic and social time series, and with addressing the special problems which the treatment of such series poses. The properties of the models and the methodological techniques used to select them are illustrated with various applications. These range from the modellling of trends and cycles in US macroeconomic time series to to an evaluation of the effects of seat belt legislation in the UK.

Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter

The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

We assess consumer choice of eco-labeled, organic, and regular apples, and identify sociodemographic characteristics affecting the choice among those three alternatives. Eco-labeled apples are less desirable than organic when food safety, the environment, and children's needs are considered. Characteristics that may be expected to positively affect the decision to buy eco-labeled apples relative to regular apples actually have the opposite effect with the inclusion of the organic alternative. When considering all three choices, the eco-labeled product is found to be an intermediate choice among consumers.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/40987117.pdf

Assessing Consumer Preferences for Organic, Eco-labeled, and Regular Apples

Farmers and other producers are responding to consumer concerns about pesticides by creating new marketing opportunities for products grown with environmentally sound practices. The eco-label analyzed in this study is certified by The Food Alliance (TFA), a non-profit third-party certifying organization based in Portland, Oregon. We assess the mean willingness to pay (WTP) for eco-labeled apples using a double-bounded logit model. We conclude that female respondents with children, and strong environmental and food safety concerns are more likely to pay a premium for eco-labeled apples. However, the estimated premium is small (about 5 cents per pound over an initial price of 99 cents), reflecting the overall difficulty with garnering a premium based on "environmentally sound" practices.

Will Consumers Pay a Premium for Eco-labeled Apples?

Consumers' attitudes toward quality and desire for cultural identification have generated a growing demand for agricultural products that carry a strong identification with a particular geographical region. Many of these products are currently protected by European Legislation. A hedonic approach was used in order to calculate consumers' willingness to pay for fresh meat products that carry the Protected Geographical Identification label, “Galician Veal,” in Spain. The results indicate that if this label is present on high quality cuts of meat, one can obtain a premium up to a certain level of quality. The label is not significant for either quality extreme. Implications of these results and recommendations for the industry are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Assessing consumer response to protected geographical identification labeling.

Demand for healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly food products has been increasing. In response, producers are marketing organic and other quality-differentiated foods, sometimes claiming to have followed sound environmental and animal welfare practices. These products frequently have unobservable quality attributes. If the profit-maximizing producer is able to deceive the consumer with a false claim, then he or she will enjoy a higher price with lower production costs (compared to the full disclosure outcome). The analysis described in this paper shows that repeat-purchase relationships and third-party monitoring are required for high-quality credence goods to be available. Policy implications of this analysis for national organ;c food standards- are discussed. In recent years, the increasing number of health conscious, informed, and more demanding consumers has led to an increase in demand for healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly food products. The food industry has responded to this increased demand by offering a wider range of quality-differentiated products (Fraz~o and Allshouse 1996), including organic foods, products with other nutritional and food safety characteristics, products with claims that they were produced with sound environmental and animal welfare practices, and kosher foods. Food processors and retailers have been quick to use quality claims in marketing these products, The major characteristics that define food product quality attributes include food safety, nutritional, value, packaging and processing (Hooker and Caswell 1996). These food product quality classes are offered with different degrees of asymmetric information. Asymmetric information problems occur because food producers know whether they have used the appropriate methods to achieve the desired quality attributes, but consumers only know with certainty what the producers’ quality claims are or what the label says. The federal government

/pdf/a-game-theoretic-approach-to-organic-foods-an-analysis-of-4219nmu78w.pdf

A game theoretic approach to organic foods: an analysis of asymmetric information and policy

Firms who sell regional or specialty products often share a collective reputation based on aggregate quality. Collective reputation can be approached as a dynamic common property resource problem. We show that for an experience good without firm traceability, individual firms have the incentive to choose quality levels that are sub-optimal for the group. These results support minimum quality standards. Trigger strategies are analyzed as an alternative solution to this problem. Finally, the implications of these results are discussed as they relate to the case study of Washington apples. Specialty, regional, authentic, and local food products have become a more important part of consumer purchases in recent years. Firms have responded by marketing food products that come from specific geographic areas. This trend in consumers’ preferences has led the European Union to introduce protected designations of origin labels and protected geographical identification labels, which provide protection of food names on a geographical or traditional basis, ranging from Parmesan cheese to such lesser-known items such as Galician veal. In the United States, there are popular state products that carry labels, such as Washington apples, Idaho potatoes,

/pdf/collective-reputation-and-quality-1t4w71led6.pdf

Jill J. McCluskey

Papers

Assessing Consumer Preferences for Organic, Eco-labeled, and Regular Apples

Will Consumers Pay a Premium for Eco-labeled Apples?

Assessing consumer response to protected geographical identification labeling.

A game theoretic approach to organic foods: an analysis of asymmetric information and policy

Collective Reputation and Quality