Riesterrente: Politik ohne Marktbeobachtung

Unfaire Vertriebsmethoden, begrenzte Offenlegung von Kosten, zweifelhafte Beratungen, unzureichende und unverständliche Verbraucherinformation sowie erfolglose Beschwerden attestieren insbesondere Verbraucherorganisationen der Riesterrentenversicherung und ihrem privatwirtschaftlichen Vertrieb auch noch fast ein Jahrzehnt nach der Einführung der staatlich geförderten privaten Altersvorsorge. Demgegenüber stellt die Bundesregierung diesem Riesterprodukt ein mit wenigen Abstrichen durchweg positives Gesamturteil aus: Die Transparenz für den Verbraucher sei gegeben, weitere als die bereits eingeleiteten regulierenden Eingriffe durch den Gesetzgeber seien nicht erforderlich. Offenbar entspringt die Kritik der Verbraucherorganisationen aber nicht einer kollektiven Einbildung, denn es gibt Hinweise, dass die Anbietervielfalt dem Verbraucher letztlich nicht ausreichend zugute kommt. So sind Kosten und Leistungen kaum zu überprüfen und zu vergleichen. Dafür, dass es um ein Produkt geht, das von der Politik als eine tragende Säule der Altersvorsorge mit zunehmendem Gewicht eingeführt wurde, muss die Datenlage als eklatant unzureichend bezeichnet werden. Eine umfassende Marktbeobachtung und eine begleitende Evaluierung des Riestermarktes sind überfällig.Behavioral economics and finance, Consumer market observation, State-aided private oldage provision, Product quality

Nachhaltiger Konsum: Aufgabe der "Neuen Verbraucherpolitik?"

"Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit neueren Entwicklungen im Politikfeld Verbraucherpolitik. Es wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern es sich bei der so genannten 'Neuen Verbraucherpolitik' inhaltlich materiell und institutionell-formell um einen Neubeginn handelt. Das 'Neue', so wird argumentiert, ergibt sich zum einen aus neuen Herausforderungen (Globalisierung, Europäisierung, Aufgabe der Nachhaltigen Entwicklung u.a.), zum anderen aus einem veränderten Selbstverständnis der Politik als aktive wirtschafts- und lebensqualitätsfördernde Querschnittspolitik. Die Förderung nachhaltiger Konsummuster als verbraucherpolitisches Ziel wird diskutiert." (Autorenreferat

Perspectives for sustainable consumption: An exploratory study of the discourses and practices of Cordoba's citizens (Argentina)

This paper addresses some of the perceptions, beliefs, and experiences related to sustainable consumption habits of citizens of Córdoba (Argentina). We focus on three main areas of consumption: food, housing, and mobility. The study examines the discourses of 59 citizens in seven focus groups with seven to nine persons each. Six groups combine age ranges (18-29, 30-49, and 50-70 years old), socioeconomic status (high-medium and low-medium), and gender. A seventh group is composed of citizens who participate actively in environmental organisations with a mix of ages, SES and genders. We conduct a content analysis using ATLAS.ti software. The results of this study indicate that the participants in general have difficulty spontaneously associating their consumption practices with environmental problems. Three results are prominent: First, the role of meat consumption for sustainability is almost unnoticed by most participants; this is noteworthy given the overconsumption of meat in Argentina. Second, we find little knowledge about water-saving appliances while a high rate of individual water consumption in Córdoba is in fact alarming. Third, respondents do not consider environmental aspects when choosing their everyday modes of mobility. Based on these initial findings, we sketch the research and data needed to advance knowledge of sustainable consumption in Argentina and Latin America from a psychological and other behavioural science perspectives, as well as implications for policies aiming to address environmental degradation

Childhood Obesity, Sustainable Development, and Behavioral Economics

To understand the rising prevalence of obesity in affluent societies, it is necessary to take into account the growing obesity infrastructure, which over past decades has developed into an obesogenic environment. This infrastructure is a direct reflection of the mainstream economic growth paradigm that the literature on consumer culture characterizes as chronic overconsumption. This study examines the effects of one of the constituent factors of consumer societies and a key contributory factor to childhood obesity: commercial food communication targeted to children and its impact on their food knowledge and food preferences. Because evaluations of traditional information- and education-based interventions suggest that they may not sustainably change food patterns, we combine insights from behavioral economics and traditional consumer behavior theory to formulate seven hypotheses, which we then test using a subsample from the IDEFICS study. The results reveal not only that advertising has divergent effects on children’s food knowledge and preferences but that food knowledge is unrelated to food preferences, a finding that has important implications for future research and public policy

The first study on Danish consumers’ tendency to compulsive buying

The present study is the first study of Danish consumers on compulsive buying. It draws on a representative sample of 1,015 Danish consumers (aged between 15 and 84 years) and extends prior research undertaken in other countries (such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Canada, the US). It is the first study to shed light on the situation in a Scandinavian context and is designed to allow for a comparison with the situation in other countries

Responsibility Attribution and Consumer Behaviour in the Light of the Bangladesh Factory Collapse

The current fashion system is highly unsustainable, as continuous overproduction and overconsumption is contributing to environmental as well as social degradation. The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between consumers’ perceived responsibility for the non-sustainability of the fashion industry, diffusion of responsibility between different actors, label knowledge and use, perceived external barriers and environmental apparel consumption. Theoretically, we combine the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability-Model with norm activation theory. We use a representative sample of young Swedish consumers for our analysis. Findings show that perceived personal responsibility as well as label knowledge and use enhance environmental apparel consumption. The small but significant negative effect of perceived responsibility diffusion on environmental apparel consumption indicates that responsibilities between relevant actors might have to be delegated more explicitly than it happens today

“Corona Cooking” : The interrelation between emotional response to the first lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and cooking attitudes and behaviour in Denmark

For this study, the authors measured attitudes toward shopping for food and cooking, before and during the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, among a sample of 526 Danish consumers, using an online survey. To analyse changes due to the lockdown, they applied a latent class Markov model, which revealed four states: middle of the road, love cooking (and like shopping), like shopping and cooking, and do not like shopping or cooking. In estimating transition probabilities, the findings reveal that most respondents remained in the same state before and during the lockdown, but those that changed were more likely to exhibit relatively higher liking of shopping and cooking. These states also reflect variations in people’s food literacy and self-reported food consumption. Finally, respondents with stronger negative emotional reactions to the lockdown were more likely to change their states.© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

European Policymakers’ View on Sustainable User Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Good ideas and innovations are hard to spot and often come from the most unlikely of circumstances – once successful their value seems almost self-evident, but in the early stages a new idea or innovation remains largely anonymous and in dangerous waters. The growth of the Danish windmill industry was for example in the early stage hard to foresee. The utilization of wind power as a source of energy was not a novel concept in the 1970s when Riisager (a carpenter by trade) and others began to experiment with different turbine designs, nor was it a lucrative endeavor as it for many years remained, from a market perspective, unprofitable. Despite this, a small group of enthusiastic (and idealistic) individuals managed to dramatically improve existing designs, increasing the kW production of turbines from 15-30 kW in 1974-1979 to 180-450 kW by 1989. The success of the Danish wind turbine case was possible because multiple and diverse but interlinked actors tested varying designs in different locations, drawing both on their localized learningby- doing knowledge but also on the successes and failures of others. Step-by-step what had been a discarded idea for power production became the foundation of a large scale sustainable industry. The Danish windmill story has arguably become an oft-repeated story, but nonetheless it illustrates a key point: knowledge relevant for innovation is widely dispersed and is therefore typically outside the realm of any one individual, firm or organization

The determinants of food choice

Health nudge interventions to steer people into healthier lifestyles are increasingly applied by governments worldwide, and it is natural to look to such approaches to improve health by altering what people choose to eat. However, to produce policy recommendations that are likely to be effective, we need to be able to make valid predictions about the consequences of proposed interventions, and for this, we need a better understanding of the determinants of food choice. These determinants include dietary components (e.g. highly palatable foods and alcohol), but also diverse cultural and social pressures, cognitive-affective factors (perceived stress, health attitude, anxiety and depression), and familial, genetic and epigenetic influences on personality characteristics. In addition, our choices are influenced by an array of physiological mechanisms, including signals to the brain from the gastrointestinal tract and adipose tissue, which affect not only our hunger and satiety but also our motivation to eat particular nutrients, and the reward we experience from eating. Thus, to develop the evidence base necessary for effective policies, we need to build bridges across different levels of knowledge and understanding. This requires experimental models that can fill in the gaps in our understanding that are needed to inform policy, translational models that connect mechanistic understanding from laboratory studies to the real life human condition, and formal models that encapsulate scientific knowledge from diverse disciplines, and which embed understanding in a way that enables policy-relevant predictions to be made. Here we review recent developments in these areas.</p