The changing egg demand in Canada: do advertising and health message contents matter?

Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Health Economics and Policy,

Measuring Efficiency in Fruit and Vegetable Marketing Co-operatives with Heterogeneous Technologies in Canada

The objectives of this study are to estimate the efficiency of fruit and vegetable co-operatives in Canada and to investigate the relationship between the degree of financial leverage and efficiency.Agribusiness,

IMPACT OF DECISION MAKERS DIVERGENCE IN RISK ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS ON CO-OPERATIVE MANAGEMENT IN CANADA

In this paper, the results of a survey investigating whether risk attitudes and perceptions differ between managers and boards of directors of co-operative agribusiness firms presented. Using the framework of Fishbein's attitude-behavior model the factors underlying these differences are identified. Implications for future strategies of co-operative agribusinesses management are addressed.Agribusiness, Risk and Uncertainty,

Do Decision Makers' Debt-risk Attitudes Affect the Agency Costs of Debt?

Over the past 25 years, traditional agricultural co-operatives have been challenged by competition from local investor-owned firms and multinational companies, deregulation and globalization of trade, and increased market concentration in suppliers and purchasers. At the same time, co-operatives have constantly been seeking to add value to their member services through expansion and/or adoption of new technology. The capital investment needed for these endeavours has to be financed, and for traditional co-operatives the major source of financing new investments has been long-term borrowing. As a result some co-operatives are characterized by high debt loads, which may result in increased financial risk exposure. Important factors that may influence the level of financial risk exposure are the potential conflicts between managerial self-interest and the interest of the owners of the firm (Jensen, 1986; Jensen and Meckling, 1976) and the impact of these differences on the choice of capital structure (Friend and Lang, 1988; Firth, 1995; Matthews et al., 1994). Despite the considerable literature (e.g., Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Lewis and Sappington, 1995), the impact that differences in attitudes between managers and directors/members have upon the decision making process has remained a relatively unexplained aspect of agency problems, especially in member-owned firms. This article assesses the social-psychological and demographic variables that affect co-operative decision makers’ attitudes toward long-term debt financing and their intentions to increase long-term borrowing.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy,

INCENTIVE INCOMPATIBILITY IN CO-OPERATIVE AGRIBUSINESS FIRMS IN CANADA: DOES SUPPLY MANAGEMENT MATTER?

Agribusiness,

Assessing Demographic Changes and Income Inequalities: A Case Study of West Virginia

This study investigates demographic change and income inequalities, and relationship between economic growth and income inequality in West Virginia. Income growth was positively related with population and employment growth, but is significantly and negatively related with income inequality. This indicates that higher income inequality is associated with slower economic growth.Labor and Human Capital,

Steering far-field spin-dependent splitting of light by inhomogeneous anisotropic media

An inhomogeneous anisotropic medium with specific structure geometry can apply the tunable spin-dependent geometrical phase to the light passing through the medium, and thus can be used to steer the spin-dependent splitting (SDS) of light. In this paper, we exemplify this inference by the q plate, an inhomogeneous anisotropic medium. It is demonstrated that when a linearly polarized light beam normally passes through a q plate, k-space SDS first occurs, and then the real-space SDS in the far-field focal plane of a converging lens is distinguishable. Interestingly, the SDS, described by the normalized Stokes parameter S3 shows a multilobe and rotatable splitting pattern with rotational symmetry. Further, by tailoring the structure geometry of the q plate and/or the incident polarization angle of light, the lobe number and the rotation angle both are tunable. Our result suggests that the q plate can serve as a potential device for manipulating the photon spin states and enable applications such as in nano-optics and quantum information.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Is Income Inequality Endogenous in Regional Growth?

This study focuses on testing the relationship between income inequality and growth within U.S. counties, and the channels through which such effects are observed. The study tests three hypotheses: (1) income inequality has an inverse relationship with growth; (2) regional growth adjustments are the channels through which the inequality and growth are equilibrated; and (3) income inequality is endogenous to regional growth and its adjustment. Results, based on a system of equations estimation, confirm the hypotheses that income inequality has a growth dampening effect; income inequality is endogenous to regional growth and growth adjustment; and the channels through which income inequality determines growth are regional growth adjustments, such as migration and regional adjustment in job and income growth. Results have numerous policy implications: (1) to the extent that income inequality is endogenous, its equilibrium level can be internally determined within a regional growth process; (2) to the extent that traditional income inequality mitigating policies have indirect effect on overall regional growth, they may have unintended indirect effects on income inequality; and (3) to the extent that regional growth adjustment also equilibrates income inequality, such forces can be utilized as policy instruments to mitigate income inequality, and its growth dampening effects hence forth.Income inequality, economic growth, Gini coefficient, growth modeling, population change, per capita income, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics, I32, J15, O18, P25, R11, R23, R25, R51, R53, R58,

Construction of a polarization insensitive lens from a quasi-isotropic metamaterial slab

We propose to employ the quasiisotropic metamaterial (QIMM) slab to construct a polarization insensitive lens, in which both E- and H-polarized waves exhibit the same refocusing effect. For shallow incident angles, the QIMM slab will provide some degree of refocusing in the same manner as an isotropic negative index material. The refocusing effect allows us to introduce the ideas of paraxial beam focusing and phase compensation by the QIMM slab. On the basis of angular spectrum representation, a formalism describing paraxial beams propagating through a QIMM slab is presented. Because of the negative phase velocity in the QIMM slab, the inverse Gouy phase shift and the negative Rayleigh length of paraxial Gaussian beam are proposed. We find that the phase difference caused by the Gouy phase shift in vacuum can be compensated by that caused by the inverse Gouy phase shift in the QIMM slab. If certain matching conditions are satisfied, the intensity and phase distributions at object plane can be completely reconstructed at image plane. Our simulation results show that the superlensing effect with subwavelength image resolution could be achieved in the form of a QIMM slab.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figure

Spin Hall effect of light in photon tunneling

We resolve the breakdown of angular momentum conservation on two-dimensional photon tunneling by considering spin Hall effect (SHE) of light. This interesting effect manifests itself as polarization-dependent transverse shifts for a classic wave packet tunneling through a prism-air-prism barrier. For a certain circularly polarized component, the transverse shifts can be modulated by altering the refractive index gradient associated with the two prisms. We find that the SHE in conventional beam refraction can be evidently enhanced via photon tunneling mechanism. The polarization-dependent transverse shift is governed by the total angular momentum conservation law, while the polarization-dependent angular shift is governed by the total linear momentum law. These findings open the possibility for developing new nano-photonic devices and can be extrapolated to other physical systems.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure