The influence of retail outlet and FSMA information on consumer perceptions of and willingness to pay for organic grape tomatoes

The primary objective of this research was to determine the effect of retail outlet (supercenter, supermarket, farmers market, fresh format) on consumer perceptions of and willingness to pay (WTP) for organic grape tomatoes. Also examined was whether information on the proposed Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations, with and without information on tomato safety, altered these aspects across retail outlets. Field experiments were conducted with 207 participants in two U.S. states in fall 2014 to address these questions. Consumers’ perceptions and WTP varied significantly by retail outlet, with farmers markets and fresh format stores receiving the most favorable evaluations and supercenters the least. With FSMA information, safety perceptions fell significantly for the favored outlets and mostly increased for supercenters. Participants’ felt no producers should be exempt from the FSMA and viewed farmers markets vendors as most likely to be exempt. Unexpectedly though, these changes seldom translated into changes in WTP. Further, in treatments with added tomato safety information, supercenters saw no safety rating benefit. Overall, it was clear the organic label was not viewed equally across different retail outlets.     

Wages, taxes and publicly provided day care

Public employment growth has been parallelled by increased female labour force participation, while real wages for typical female public sector occupations have not increased. In a theoretical model we, first, show that there is a tradeoff between day care provision and gross wages for occupations for which day care is a complement. It is possible to combine increased public labour demand with public day care provision leaving the wage unaffected. Second, non-parents will be in favour of increasing day care as long as day care productivity is higher than the inverse of the tax rate. This is because the effective labour supply and, therefore, the tax base increase. Third, parents want to push day care provision even further. They are prepared to accept a lower day care productivity than non-parents because day care provision relaxes the constraint on their desired labour supply. The Pareto efficient day care provision is between parents‘ and non-parents‘ preferred levels. Received: 12 December 1995 / Accepted: 17 September 1997     

“十三五”北京市新能源汽车节能减排潜力

采用车用燃料生命周期分析法,对北京市推广的电动出租车、公交车、环卫车和租赁电动车的节能效应和减排效应进行量化分析,结合北京市电动车的运行情况对新能源电动车的碳排放影响因素进行分析,在此基础上对"十三五"期间北京市新能源汽车节能减排效果预测,并据此提出一定发展路径的政策建议。研究认为:北京市现行推广的电动出租车、公交车、环卫车和租赁电动车具有较好的节能减排效果;发电结构、车用燃料类型等影响因素对电动车的减排效果影响较大;预计到2020年,推广的新能源电动车将节能154769万千瓦时、减排CO2 39.4万吨。     

民国时期藏事传奇人物谢国梁评述

谢国梁作为民国官吏中颇富传奇色彩之人,在西藏地方与中央政府关系处于非正常时期,为中央政府与西藏地方关系的改善发挥了重要的作用。     

埃尔金建构主义的逻辑根基

埃尔金以"不当步骤"和"正确物"思想改造传统建构主义,并通过解释名称指称为之作出系统辩护。她强调诠释和理解在解释语言-世界之间关系中的作用,以此批判主流名称指称理论,并对指称概念进行扩充。埃尔金为其建构主义的辩护是不彻底的,但它道出了融合分析哲学和诠释学重构认识论的必要性。     

西方管理理论中人性预设演变的逻辑进程——兼论企业文化管理产生的必然性

管理活动的展开以对人性的认识为前提,不同的管理理论及实践体现着不同的人性预设.文章分析了西方管理理论中的人性预设,阐明了几种主要的人性预设理论的逻辑关联及其演进的逻辑进程,并以此为出发点,探讨了企业文化理论产生的历史及其逻辑上的必然性.     

The Equivalence of Two Proportions Revisited

The classic conditional test for checking that the difference between two independent proportions is not null may not be appropriate in many circumstances. Dunnett & Gent (1977) showed that in clinical trials, in studies of drugs, etc, the aim is to prove the practical equality (equivalence) of both proportions. On other occasions the aim may be the opposite: i.e. to prove that the two proportions are substantially different (biologically significant). Both cases are usually solved by two one-sided tests (TOST test). In this article, this procedure is shown to be conservative and two true two-sided tests for each case are proposed.     

Barefoot and in a German kitchen: federal parental leave and benefit policy and the return to work after childbirth in Germany

Since 1979 German federal maternity leave and benefit policy has given women incentives to stay at home and take care of their newborn and youngest children. In 1986 this leave and benefit policy was changed in several ways, turning it into a powerful instrument for delaying mothers' return to work after childbirth. Using a flexible duration dependence estimation technique for proportional hazards due to Prentice and Gloeckler (1978) and applied to grouped durations by Meyer (1987, 1990), we estimate post childbirth return to work hazards for women during the federally protected leave protection period and immediately upon completion of this leave period. During the leave mothers are less likely to return to work the longer is the time left in the leave protection period; however, this result cannot be attributed generally to high levels of maternity benefits. When the leave protection period ends, mothers with strong labor force attachment who are still on leave return to their jobs.The second author gratefully acknowledges financial support by the National German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) (Grant No. Wa 547/2-1). The authors would like to thank Richard Burkhauser, Barbara Butrica, John F. Ermisch, Joachim Frick, Siv Gustafsson, Philip Merrigan, Johannes Schwarze, Eileen Trzcinski, Jan-Dirk Vlasblom, Gert Wagner, Sheng Zhu and two anonymous referees for their help and suggestions. Remaining errors are of course, our own. Responsible editors: Siv S. Gustafsson, John F. Ermisch.     

Women's transitions in the labour market: a competing risks analysis on German panel data

This paper analyses the transitions between the three states of non-employment, part-time and full-time work of a sample of married women living in West Germany. The questions addressed concern the dynamics of women's labour market transitions and the association of the probability of transition with household and individual characteristics. A non-parametric duration analysis shows that women have a similar attachment to full-time and part-time work in terms of survival, and that survival in non-employment is shorter than in the other two states. Estimates of a parametric discrete-time competing risks duration model show that wives of retired husbands go into full-time work, children under 3 years have a disincentive effect on part-time work and that part-time work is a state that German women prefer to stay in and not a first step to full-time employment, whereas foreign women living in West Germany prefer full-time jobs.I thank Rebecca Blank, John F. Ermisch, Siv Gustafsson, John Micklewright, Pravin Trivedi, Jane Waldfogel and two anonymous referees for helpful discussions and comments, and Hans-Peter Blossfeld for providing access to these data through his research project at the European University Institute of Florence. Responsible editors: Siv S. Gustafsson, John F. Ermisch     

云南民族地区的贫困代际传递

“十三五”时期是全面建成小康社会的决胜阶段,必须彻底解决全国目前尚未脱贫的7000多万农村贫困人口的贫困问题。其中,农村贫困问题又集中表现在民族地区,云南是集边疆、民族、山区、贫困为一体的欠发达省份,是脱贫攻坚难啃的硬骨头。从贫困代际传递的视角,分析了家庭内部包括家庭结构、生育观念、监护状况、受教育程度以及社区范围内的宗教信仰、丧葬习俗方面的致贫因素并呼吁少数民族地区干部群众抓住当前发展的有利时机,凝聚各方力量,发挥内生动力,充分实现自身发展,同时认真学习党的各项民族政策,树立对待宗教的正确态度,进而加速脱贫,共享小康。