Accounting, auditing and the first amendment / BEBR No. 681

Title page includes summary

The external debt difficulties of low income Africa

Two debt crises affect developing countries. The more publicized crisis affects the middle income Baker Plan countries, including Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire. The less well known crisis affects most of Africa's 34 low income countries. Poverty and economic rigidities in the African countries make it harder for them to grow out of their debt problems without special assistance. These countries are more dependent than the highly indebted countries on primary commodity exports, which often require long investment periods to increase production. Debtor countries must take the lead in establishing and maintaining workable medium term adjustment programs. Once adjustment is occuring, it is in the interests of donors and creditors to continue supporting recovery well into the 1990s.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Strategic Debt Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance

DETERMINANTS OF FAST FOOD CONSUMPTION

Replaced with revised version of paper 03/24/03.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Did Implementing Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) of 1990 Improve Diet?

Nutrition labeling, in the words of the then FDA commissioner, David Kessler, was to “help millions of Americans make more informed, healthier choices.” Although the NLEA primarily focused on standardizing the nutrition facts label, its implementation also involved an informational and educational campaign on how to use the new nutrition facts label and the benefits of using it. Evidently label use more than doubled between 1989-91 and 1994-96. Most of the studies provide evidence of the effects of nutrition label use by comparing label users against non-users using data after NLEA was in effect. Using pseudo-panel data method, we find that implementing NLEA did not improve diet quality but use of labels did. Further, label usage showed no improvement in diet quality within a cohort but it did reveal significant differences among or between cohorts. We also test for differences in diet quality between the two periods by comparing individuals of similar characteristics using a non-parametric approach, the Mahalnobis distance matching technique. Differences across the two periods would be tested at different quantiles of the diet quality with an emphasis on label use and education levels.Nutrition, diet, nutrition facts label, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Corporate Donations to the Arts: Philanthropy or Advertising?

This paper is an attempt to provide evidence on two questions: Why do companies sponsor art events, and where exactly does the money go? We analyse data collected on the revenue structure of cultural institutions in Berlin and Hamburg. This data set not only tells us where the money goes, it also allows us to draw conclusions with respect to donors' motives. We regress sponsorships received on the number of visitors and other independent variables. The results are significantly different from those which one would expect if sponsoring were merely a form of advertising.