THE ROLE OF HEALTH INFORMATION ON FRUITS AND VEGETABLE CONSUMPTION

A three-equation partially-recursive econometric model is specified linking consumer awareness, beliefs, attitude, and dietary behaviors. The results show that older, better educated and higher income households are more likely to meet five-a-day servings of fruits and vegetables than those who are poor and less educated.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

TESTING FOR A CHANGE IN CONSUMER TASTES FOR FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES: A STRUCTURAL LATENT VARIABLE APPROACH

This study uses a structural latent variable approach to examine whether the increased supply of health information has been successful in improving consumer tastes and preferences towards fruits and vegetables and if it has been successful in doing so, how this change in tastes is affecting the consumption of various produce commodities. The results show that consumers are responding to health messages by increasing consumption of some of the produce commodities but not all of them.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Multimuons events and primary composition

Nucleon decay detectors at large depths offers now a total area larger than 1000 sq m to registrate muons of energy exceeding 1 TeV. Near complete high energy muon families are detected in those arrays. An extensive 3D Monte-Carlo simulation was conducted in view to understand the spatial distribution of those events and the possible link with elementary act or primary composition. As pion or kaon parents have a very small decay probability at so high energy, multimuon phenomena occurs at high altitude where the atmospheric density is small after the most energetic collisions

A SYSTEM-WIDE APPROACH FOR ANALYZING THE EFFECT OF EXCHANGE RATES ON FRESH APPLE IMPORT DEMAND

This study examines the impact of changes in exchange rate and import market composition on fresh apple import demand using source differentiated import demand functions. We modify the standard Rotterdam model to incorporate exchange rate effects by revisiting Barten's fundamental matrix equation of consumer demand theory and viewing exchange rate as a "sticky" preference variable. The results show that the preference variable had a significant impact on UK but not on Malaysian and Saudi Arabian import demands.International Relations/Trade,

Freund-Rubin Revisited

We utilise the duality between M theory and Type IIA string theory to show the existence of Freund-Rubin compactifications of M theory on 7-manifolds with singularities supporting chiral fermions. This leads to a concrete way to study phenomenologically interesting quantum gravity vacua using a holographically dual three dimensional field theory.Comment: reference adde

Profitability and Long-term Survival of Community Banks: Evidence from Texas

This study examines the impact of distance among competing bank locations on market their pricing behavior. A general spatial autoregressive model that nests both spatial autoregressive and spatial error models is used to examine the impact of distance on pricing behavior of 686 non-metro banks in Texas. Results show that non-metro banks exercise market power in pricing their products. An increase in spatial competition may reduce profitability and challenge long term survival of small community based financial institutions.Financial Economics,

Market Power in Non-Metro Banking

Banks in non-metropolitan areas compete in a spatially-differentiated environment. This paper estimates a structural model of the supply and demand of banking services in which pricing power depends on the distance between rival banks. A spatial econometric model finds that approximately 38.0% of economic surplus derives from spatial market power.Financial Economics,

Retail and Wholesale Market Power in Organic Foods

The demand for organic fresh fruits and vegetable continues to grow at a rate far higher than the rest of the produce industry. The cost of meeting organic certification standards, however, has meant that supply has been slow to adjust. With limited supply, we hypothesize that organic suppliers enjoy more market power in bargaining over their share of the retail-production cost margin for fresh apples. We test this hypothesis using a random parameters, generalized extreme value demand model (mixed logit) combined with a structural model of retail and wholesale pricing that allows conduct to vary by product attributes (organic or non-organic) and time. We find that organic growers do indeed earn a larger share of the total margin than non-organic growers, but this vertical market power is eroding over time as market supply adjusts.organics, market power, mixed logit, game theory, non-linear pricing., Industrial Organization, C35, D12, D43, L13, L41, Q13.,