The index of consumer sentiment: Predictability and predictive power in the EEC

This paper investigates the mutual predictability between the Index of Consumer Sentiment and non-attitudinal economic indicator using linear regressions on aggregate time-series data for several EEC member countries. In the first part the ICS is regressed on economic indicators to show that a sizeable part of the fluctuations in the ICS are captured by the economic series. In a second part, new passenger automobile registrations are regressed on the ICS and on economic indicators to show that the ICS is al most a marginal determinant of consumer spending on new passenger cars. The general conclusions derived from the study strengthen the findings from previous studies which are sceptical about the usefulness of the ICS in the explanation and forecasting of discretionary consumer spending.     

The role of consumer and business sentiment in forecasting telecommunications traffic

The objective of this study is to investigate the relevance of consumer and business sentiment surveys in forecasting international telecommunications traffic. The components of telecommunications data used in the study relate to total telephone traffic outgoing from Australia and its social and business telephone sub-categories. Three sentiment surveys are considered: one consumer survey conducted by the University of Melbourne, and two business surveys, each conducted by a business association and major bank. The above data series are available on a quarterly basis from the first quarter of 1973. The approach employed consists of the application of transfer function modelling techniques to the traffic and various indexes measuring consumer and business sentiment. A major finding of this study is that sentiment series are correlated with international telephone traffic, and that in all but one case, the relationship can be modelled by some form of transfer function. The forecasts of the estimated models satisfactorily incorporate directional swings in the traffic.     

The plutocratic bias in the Indian consumer price index

Studies have found a plutocratic bias in the traditional Laspeyres‐type consumer price index (CPI), attaching greater importance to expenditure by rich households compared to the poor, while the democratic CPI attaches equal weight to all. The authors calculate the democratic index and estimate the plutocratic bias for the new Indian CPI (launched in 2012), the rural and urban CPIs, and the CPIs of three Indian states from 2012 to 2015. They further develop democratic indices for commodity groups and separate indices for three expenditure brackets. The biases found against less developed states and the poorer sections of the population have important implications for monetary policy and indexation of transfer payments.     

The roles of inflation and consumer sentiment in explaining Australian consumption and savings patterns

Qualitative and quantitative measures of inflation, unemployment and consumer sentiment are incorporated into traditional models of the allocation of consumers' income. Quarterly survey data collected by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research are used. Both current and expected levels of variables are considered.Equations are estimated for expenditure on motor vehicles, household durabls and non-durable goods as well as for household saving. The non-traditional variables are found to be significant, although the traditional price and income variables still dominate. In several cases qualitative variables prove to be superior to their quantitative counterparts.     

The effects of direct experience on consumer product evaluation

The effects of different sales strategies on consumer product evaluation were investigated. It was expected that direct product experience could decrease economic product valuation. Experiments 1 and 2 studied the effects of product trials and money-back guarantees on consumer willingness to pay (WTP). It appeared that WTP was significantly lower after a product trial than with a money-back guarantee or normal sale. In Experiment 3 a structural equation model showed that product trials had a positive effect on attitude toward the product. Also, a negative effect on WTP was found when the effect was measured directly, but a positive effect when the effect was measured indirectly (through attitude).     

Climbing out of an economic crisis: A cycle of consumer sentiment and personal stress

This research examines bidirectional relationships between consumer sentiment and personal stress. It seeks to answer the question whether reduced consumer sentiment (consumer perceptions about the global, national and personal economic situation) raises personal stress levels, and whether increased personal stress levels depresses consumer sentiment. Finding such relationships would reveal a pathway from economic to personal well-being, as reflected in personal stress, and the other way around. A large longitudinal study in the Netherlands with a total of eight waves across three years (2012–2014), 4 waves during and 4 waves after the recent worldwide economic crisis, finds on average low personal stress levels among consumers, which is reassuring. Also and as expected, consumers are more positive about the state of the economy after than during the crisis. Importantly, more positive consumer sentiment indeed contributes to lower levels of personal stress. Moreover, the more personal stress consumers experience, the more pessimistic they are about the state of the economy after the crisis, whereas this connection is weaker during the crisis. This sheds new light on the pathways between consumer sentiment about the economy and their personal well-being.     

Coping strategies and changes in the satisfaction of consumer needs in Poland

During the process of transformation members of households face multiple new challenges, including the necessity to make new decisions and verify previous actions that were undertaken to fulfil their needs. These new requirements are reflected in active or passive strategies adopted by households to balance their budgets. The first behaviour, the fox strategy’, invokes individuals’ adaptation of outside conditions to their own needs and preferences, such as doubling their work efforts in order largely to preserve the earlier patterns of consumption. The second reaction, the ‘hedgehog strategy’, involves the ‘cultivation of a balanced budget’, that is, taking care that expenses do not exceed income by restricting the use of many goods and services and limiting expenses and any symptoms of waste. The third response is a crisis or ‘lemmings’ strategy. This strategy may be observed in situations of drastic fall in a household's real income, where the household must reduce its consumer property (sale of household goods, taking on a pawn loan), or resort to outside help, e.g. institutional assistance (benefits, relief). Looking at each type of strategy, it may be said that from 1989 to 1994, the percentage of households implementing active strategies did not change, the group of households putting an effort into the ‘cultivation of the family budget equilibrium’ increased, and the group of households adopting the ‘lemmings’ strategy’ grew decidedly.     

Tracing out the effects of demographic changes on the income distribution

During the 1980s and 1990s fertility decisions varied significantly and not uniformly along the income distribution in Argentina. In this paper we study the effects of these demographic changes on income poverty and inequality by applying microeconometric decomposition techniques. In particular, we simulate the equivalized household income distribution that would emerge if individuals observed in a given base year had taken fertility decisions as they did in another different year. The results suggest that these demographic factors have contributed considerably to the changes in poverty and inequality experienced by Argentina since the 1980s.     

The effect of a college pen incentive on survey response rate among recent college graduates

Incentives have shown a variable effect in improving survey response rates, but the effect of a pen from an organization to which the respondent has loyalty has not been studied. Recent college graduates were randomized to receive or not receive a college logo pen accompanying an initial survey mailing. Among 119 total respondents, there were no differences in response rate to the initial mailing, to a second mailing to nonrespondents who did not receive a pen in the initial mailing, or in total response rate. Investigators may save money by not including a pen incentive or may consider stronger incentives.     

The influence of negative newspaper coverage on consumer confidence: The Dutch case

This paper studies the empirical relationship between the real economy, consumer confidence and economic news coverage in national newspapers for the Netherlands during the period 1990-2009. Media-attention for economic developments is associated with consumer confidence, with more negative news decreasing consumer confidence; this result holds after controlling for the real economy (stock-market). The relationship differs for different business-cycles. The effect is in particular stronger for the months following the beginning of the credit-crisis. This suggests that in line with many popular concerns negative news is among factors influencing the hardness of the landing of the current credit-crisis.     

The human development index: a response to Klugman, Rodriguez and Choi

Each year, the mass media and many governments look keenly at the country rankings by the Human Development Index (HDI), as published in the annual Human Development Reports (HDR). Klugman, Rodriguez and Choi (KRC) were members of the team that produced the 20th anniversary edition of the HDR (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2010) which introduced a new version of this popular index. However, Ravallion (2010) argued that the new HDI has a number of undesirable features, some shared with the old index and some new. This note responds to the points made by KRC (J Econ Inequality 9(2):249–288, 2011) in their defense of the new HDI.¹     

The effects of workstation changes and behavioral interventions on safe typing postures in an office

The purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of an ergonomic and behavioral safety intervention for improving participants' safe typing postures in a library office setting. A single-subject multiple baseline design across five participants was employed to evaluate the effects of the four independent variables (workstation adjustment, equipment trial (rollermouse mouse alternative), peer observations, and graphic feedback). Six participant postures were observed repeatedly while participants worked at their workstations throughout the study. Each of the interventions resulted in improvements in safety for more than one posture compared to the previous phase. Results of the study indicate that a comprehensive ergonomic program that includes a workstation adjustment and a behavioral safety approach may be helpful to produce maximum improvements in employees' safe ergonomic postures.     

The implications of mean scaling for the calculation of aggregate consumer elasticities

Mean scaling is a common assumption in the estimation of aggregate consumer elasticities—in particular, expenditure elasticities, but also (implicitly) compensated price elasticities. The assumption is that each household’s income changes in the same proportion as aggregate income. If correct, that implies no bias in the use of aggregate data for estimation of expenditure elasticities. If incorrect, though, there may be substantial bias, especially if there is a high degree of inequality in the underlying income distribution, and regardless of whether one uses micro or aggregate data. We explore this issue, both theoretically and illustratively, using realistic (empirically derived) elasticity estimates coupled with relatively high and low degrees of income inequality.     

The effects of target attractiveness on men's sexual arousal in response to erotic auditory stimuli

Previous research on sexual arousal resulting from auditory stimuli indicates that visual imagery acts as a mediator between stimulus input and resulting arousal. This leads to the question of whether imagery, and subsequent arousal, can be manipulated by providing differing information to hold in semantic memory. This research hypothesizes that attractive images held within semantic memory and pattern-matched with an erotic auditory stimulus facilitate higher self-reported arousal, and at a more rapid rate, than unattractive images. Participants in an "Unattractive" condition experienced slower rates and lower mean levels of arousal in response to an auditory stimulus, compared to participants in an "Attractive" or "No Picture" condition. No differences existed between groups in maximum arousal scores or the tendency to visualize the target during the listening task. Implications for the role of imagery in sexual response, possible measurement issues, and suggestions for future research are addressed in the discussion.     

The structure of consumer confidence in four EEC countries

This paper reports an exploration of the structure of consumer confidence in four of the countries participating in the EEC harmonized consumer attitudes surveys. The analysis is based on two EEC surveys in each of the countries concerned and uses the rotated solutions on the first three factors of the data. It was found that the different countries and surveys had similar factor structures which were interpreted as general economic conditions: personal financial circumstances; household durable buying intentions. The position of price expectations and attitudes to saving within these factor structures is also of interest in the interpretation of consumer behaviour.     

Lifecycle effects on consumer financial product portfolios in South Africa: An exploratory analysis of four ethnic groups

This paper assesses ownership of 16 financial products by households in different lifecycle stages amongst four ethnic groups (Africans, Coloureds, Asians, and Whites) in South Africa. The lifecycle hypothesis indicates younger households should own more debt-related financial products, whereas households in intermediate lifecycle stages should own more financial products to accumulate assets; both these claims are disconfirmed for all groups. However, White households in intermediate household stages own more financial products than younger and older households, consistent with previously reported lifecycle findings in Western countries. Consistent with the literature on innovation adoption we find that younger, affluent and highly educated households amongst the other three ethnic groups tend to own more financial products than older Africans, Coloureds and Asians. These results indicate that innovation adoption literature may better describe financial product ownership in developing countries than the lifecycle hypothesis.