An Economic Model of Youth Smoking: Tax and Welfare Effects

This paper presents a model of smoking choice in which rationality is bounded by limitations in intertemporal computational abilities. The model is applied to the youth decision to initiate smoking. Lifetime smoking paths of representative smokers indicate that youths may experience a reduction in lifetime utility and come to regret their decision to smoke. It is suggested that public policy interventions that raise the near term cost of smoking will be more effective in reducing lifetime smoking than informational campaigns that emphasize future health costs. However, youth taxes would have to be quite high to substantially reduce smoking rates among youths who have already begun to smoke. Also, low youth taxes would not prevent future smoking as an adult, although they would reduce smoking rates and lead to earlier quitting.Cigarettes, smoking, addiction, Behavioral economics

Cultural Effects of Trade Liberalization

We incorporate culture into a standard trade model in two distinct ways. In the ¡°cultural affinity from work¡± model, workers receive a non- pecuniary cultural benefit from work in a particular industry. In the ¡°cultural externality¡± model, consumers of a product receive utility from other consumer¡¯s consumption of a domestic good. We show that resistance to change due to cultural concerns can reduce the national benefits from trade liberalization. Complete movements to free trade will have a positive national welfare impact in the cultural affinity case whereas it may lower national welfare in the cultural externality case. We also show that a loss of cultural benefits is more likely to occur in the externality model.Cigarettes, smoking, addiction, Behavioral economics

A Behavioral Model of Cyclical Dieting

This paper presents a behavioral economics model with bounded rationality to describe an individual¡¯s food consumption choices that lead to weight gain and dieting. Using a physiological relationship determining calories needed to maintain weight, we simulate the food consumption choices of a representative female over a 30 year period. Results show that a diet will reduce weight only temporarily. Recurrence of weight gain leads to cyclical dieting, which reduces the trend rate of weight increase. Dieting frequency is shown to depend on decision period length, dieting costs, and habit persistence.Dieting, Behavioral economics, Weight cycles,

Can A Rational Choice Framework Make Sense of Anorexia Nervosa?

Can a rational choice modeling framework help broaden our understanding of anorexia nervosa? This question is interesting because anorexia nervosa is a serious health concern, and because of the following issue: could a rational choice approach shed useful light on a condition which appears to involve "choosing" to be ill? We present a model of weight choice and dieting applicable to anorexia nervosa, and the sometimes-associated purging behavior. We also present empirical evidence about factors possibly contributing to anorexia nervosa. We offer this analysis as a consciousness-raising way of thinking about the condition.

Marketing as a means to transformative social conflict resolution: lessons from transitioning war economies and the Colombian coffee marketing system

Social conflicts are ubiquitous to the human condition and occur throughout markets, marketing processes, and marketing systems.When unchecked or unmitigated, social conflict can have devastating consequences for consumers, marketers, and societies, especially when conflict escalates to war. In this article, the authors offer a systemic analysis of the Colombian war economy, with its conflicted shadow and coping markets, to show how a growing network of fair-trade coffee actors has played a key role in transitioning the country’s war economy into a peace economy. They particularly draw attention to the sources of conflict in this market and highlight four transition mechanisms — i.e., empowerment, communication, community building and regulation — through which marketers can contribute to peacemaking and thus produce mutually beneficial outcomes for consumers and society. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for marketing theory, practice, and public policy

Import Policy Effects on the Optimal Oil Price

A steady increase in oil imports leaves oil importing countries increasingly vulnerable to future oil price shocks. Using a variation of the U.S. EIA's oil market simulation model, equilibria displaying multiple price shocks is derived endogenously as a result of optimizing behavior on the part of OPEC Here we investigate the effects that an oil import tariff and a petroleum stock release policy may have on an OPEC optimal price path. It is shown that while both policies can reduce the magnitude of future price shocks neither may be politically or technically feasible.