ECO-LABELING STRATEGIES: THE ECO-PREMIUM PUZZLE IN THE WINE INDUSTRY

Eco-labeling signals that a product has been eco-certified. While there is increasing use of eco-labeling practices, there is still little understanding of the conditions under which eco-labels can command price premiums. In this paper, we argue that the certification of environmental practices by a third party should be analyzed as a strategy distinct from although related to the advertisement of the eco-certification through a label posted on the product. By assessing eco-labeling and eco-certification strategies separately, we are able to identify benefits associated with the certification process independently from those associated with the actual label. More specifically, we argue in the context of the wine industry that eco-certification can provide benefits, such as improved reputation in the industry or increased product quality, which can lead to a price premium without the need to use the eco-label. We estimate this price premium of wine due to the eco-certification of grapes using 13,400 observations of wine price, quality rating, varietals, vintage, and number of bottles produced, for the period 1998-2005. Overall, certifying wine increases the price by 13%, yet including an eco-label reduces the price by 20%. This result confirms the negative connotation associated by consumers with organic wine. The price premium of this luxury good due to certification acts independently from its label, a confounding result not previously demonstrated by related literature.organic wine, wine market, price premium, eco-wine, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Corporate voluntary greenhouse gas reporting: stakeholder pressure and the mediating role of the chief executive officer

The study sheds light on the extent to which various stakeholder pressures influence voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how the impact is explained and moderated Chief executive office (CEO) characteristics of 215 FTSE350 listed United Kingdom (UK) companies for the year 2011. The study developed a classification of GHG emission disclosure based on the guidelines of GHG Protocol, DEFRA and Global Framework for Climate Risk Disclosure using content analysis. Evidence from the study suggests that some stakeholder pressure (regulatory, creditor, supplier, customer, board control) positively impacts on GHG disclosure information by firms. We found stakeholder pressure in the form of regulatory, mimetic and shareholders pressure positively influenced the disclosure of GHG information. We also found creditor pressure also had a significant negative relationship with GHG disclosure. While CEO age had a direct negative effect on GHG voluntary disclosure, its moderation effect on stakeholder pressure influence on GHG disclosure was only significant on regulatory pressure

Localized versus itinerant magnetic moments in Na0.72CoO2

Based on experimental 59Co-NMR data in the temperature range between 0.1 and 300 K, we address the problem of the character of the Co 3d-electron based magnetism in Na0.7CoO2. Temperature dependent 59Co-NMR spectra reveal different Co environments below 300 K and their differentiation increases with decreasing temperature. We show that the 23Na- and 59Co-NMR data may consistently be interpreted by assuming that below room temperature the Co 3d-electrons are itinerant. Their magnetic interaction appears to favor an antiferromagnetic coupling, and we identify a substantial orbital contribution corb to the d-electron susceptibility. At low temperatures corb seems to acquire some temperature dependence, suggesting an increasing influence of spin-orbit coupling. The temperature dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rate T1-1(T) confirms significant variations in the dynamics of this electronic subsystem between 200 and 300K, as previously suggested. Below 200 K, Na0.7CoO2 may be viewed as a weak antiferromagnet with TN below 1 K but this scenario still leaves a number of open questions.Comment: 8.7 pages, 6 Figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Bacterial diversity of autotrophic enriched cultures from remote, glacial Antarctic, Alpine and Andean aerosol, snow and soil samples

International audienceFour different communities and one culture of autotrophic microbial assemblages were obtained by incubation of samples collected from high elevation snow in the Alps (Mt. Blanc area) and the Andes (Nevado Illimani summit, Bolivia), from Antarctic aerosol (French station Dumont d'Urville) and a maritime Antarctic soil (King George Island, South Shetlands, Uruguay Station Artigas), in a minimal mineral (oligotrophic) media. Molecular analysis of more than 200 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that all cultured cells belong to the Bacteria domain. Phylogenetic comparison with the currently available rDNA database allowed sequences belonging to Proteobacteria (Alpha-, Betaand Gamma-proteobacteria) , Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes phyla to be identified. The Andes snow culture was the richest in bacterial diversity (eight microorganisms identified) and the marine Antarctic soil the poorest (only one). Snow samples from Col du Midi (Alps) and the Andes shared the highest number of identified microorganisms (Agrobacterium, Limnobacter, Aquiflexus and two uncultured Alphaproteobacteria clones). These two sampling sites also shared four sequences with the Antarctic aerosol sample (Limnobacter, Pseudonocardia and an uncultured Alphaproteobacteria clone). The only microorganism identified in the Antarctica soil (Brevundimonas sp.) was also detected in the Antarctic aerosol. Most of the identified microorganisms had been detected previously in cold environments, marine sediments soils and rocks. Air current dispersal is the best model to explain the presence of very specific microorganisms, like those identified in this work, in environments very distant and very different from each other

Random trees between two walls: Exact partition function

We derive the exact partition function for a discrete model of random trees embedded in a one-dimensional space. These trees have vertices labeled by integers representing their position in the target space, with the SOS constraint that adjacent vertices have labels differing by +1 or -1. A non-trivial partition function is obtained whenever the target space is bounded by walls. We concentrate on the two cases where the target space is (i) the half-line bounded by a wall at the origin or (ii) a segment bounded by two walls at a finite distance. The general solution has a soliton-like structure involving elliptic functions. We derive the corresponding continuum scaling limit which takes the remarkable form of the Weierstrass p-function with constrained periods. These results are used to analyze the probability for an evolving population spreading in one dimension to attain the boundary of a given domain with the geometry of the target (i) or (ii). They also translate, via suitable bijections, into generating functions for bounded planar graphs.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, tex, harvmac, epsf; accepted version; main modifications in Sect. 5-6 and conclusio

Markers of bone turnover for the management of patients with bone metastases from prostate cancer

Although increased bone formation is a prominent feature of patients with osteosclerotic metastases from prostate cancer, there is also some evidence for increased bone resorption. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical utility of new bone resorption markers to that of bone formation in patients with bone metastases from prostate cancer before and after bisphosphonate treatment. Thirty-nine patients with prostate cancer and bone metastasis, nine patients with prostate cancer without bone metastases, nine patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and 355 healthy age-matched men were included. Urinary non-isomerized (α CTX) and β isomerized (β CTX) type I collagen C-telopeptides (CTX) and a new assay for serum CTX were used to assess bone resorption. Bone formation was determined by serum osteocalcin, serum total (T-ALP) and bone (BAP) alkaline phosphatase and serum type I collagen C-terminal propeptide (PICP). Fourteen patients with bone metastases were also evaluated 15 days after a single injection of the bisphosphonate pamidronate (120 mg). Levels of all bone formation and bone resorption markers were significantly (P< 0.006–0.0001) higher in patients with prostate cancer and bone metastasis than in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia, patients with prostate cancer without bone metastases and healthy controls. In patients with bone metastases the median was increased by 67% for serum osteocalcin, 128% for T-ALP, 138% for BAP, 79% for PICP, 220% for urinary α CTX, 149% for urinary β CTX and 214% for serum CTX. After bisphosphonate treatment all three resorption markers significantly decreased by an average of 65% (P = 0.001), 71% (P = 0.0010) and 61% (P = 0.0015) for urinary α CTX, urinary β CTX and serum CTX, respectively, whereas no significant change was observed for any bone formation markers. Patients with prostate cancer and bone metastases exhibit a marked increase in bone resorption, which decreases within a few days of treatment with pamidronate. These findings suggest that these new resorption markers may be useful for the management of these patients. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Geodesic Distance in Planar Graphs

We derive the exact generating function for planar maps (genus zero fatgraphs) with vertices of arbitrary even valence and with two marked points at a fixed geodesic distance. This is done in a purely combinatorial way based on a bijection with decorated trees, leading to a recursion relation on the geodesic distance. The latter is solved exactly in terms of discrete soliton-like expressions, suggesting an underlying integrable structure. We extract from this solution the fractal dimensions at the various (multi)-critical points, as well as the precise scaling forms of the continuum two-point functions and the probability distributions for the geodesic distance in (multi)-critical random surfaces. The two-point functions are shown to obey differential equations involving the residues of the KdV hierarchy.Comment: 38 pages, 8 figures, tex, harvmac, eps

Likelihood Ratio Test process for Quantitative Trait Locus detection

International audienceWe consider the likelihood ratio test (LRT) process related to the test of the absence of QTL (a QTL denotes a quantitative trait locus, i.e. a gene with quantitative effect on a trait) on the interval [0,T] representing a chromosome. The observation is the trait and the composition of the genome at some locations called ''markers''. We give the asymptotic distribution of this LRT process under the null hypothesis that there is no QTL on [0,T] and under local alternatives with a QTL at t* on [0,T]. We show that the LRT is asymptotically the square of some Gaussian process. We give a description of this process as an '' non-linear interpolated and normalized process ''. We propose a simple method to calculate the maximum of the LRT process using only statistics on markers and their ratio. This gives a new method to calculate thresholds for QTL detection