Price Interventions Research Articles

The Effect Of Price Policy On The Production And Breeding Of large Sheep flocks In Anbar Governorate (Al-Rutba District, an applied model)

Livestock constitute an essential and important part of the agricultural sector, and sheep are the mainstay in livestock, as their products come to the fore; Being an essential source of daily food; And because they also have a high nutritional value compared to plant products, and sheep are characterized by being highly efficient in food conversion, as it was mainly relied on the data obtained from the questionnaire form, where a random sample was taken of 20 sheep breeders whose sheep number exceeds 500 head of sheep. The results of this study showed that the transfers of traded inputs (J) with a negative sign, amounting to about (-9008) thousand dinars, which indicate that the social prices of traded inputs (F) are greater than private prices (B), which means that there is real support for the inputs. Stores within the applicable policy. The transfers of local resources (K) came with a negative sign and a value of (18249-) thousand dinars, which indicates the existence of support for local resources because their value at social prices is higher than their value at private prices, meaning that the protection is negative for the local product, while between the nominal protection coefficient for traded inputs which appeared With a positive value less than the correct one, its value amounted to (0.88), which indicates that the prices of traded inputs are lower than the prices of their international counterparts, and this confirms the existence of real support provided for these inputs by the state, and the cost factor of the local resource (comparative advantage factor) also appeared. With a positive sign, its value amounted to (0.24), which means that the Iraqi product has a comparative advantage and efficiency for its local production of sheep, while between the effective protection factor, which came with a positive value, its value was (0.30), which is less than one. This means that local producers receive their returns in the event that there are The price intervention policy is less than returns in the absence of it, and it showed that it is less than the right one, that is, the commodity system loses its profits in favor of other sectors.

Food Price Elasticities for Policy Interventions: Estimates from a Virtual Supermarket Experiment in a Multistage Demand Analysis with (Expert) Prior Information

Food price elasticities (PEs) are essential for evaluating the impacts of food pricing interventions to improve dietary and health outcomes. This paper innovates the use of experimental purchasing data from a recent New Zealand virtual supermarket experiment to estimate PEs for a large set of disaggregated foods across major food groups relevant for food policies in a Bayesian multistage demand framework. We propose the use of available prior information to elicit prior demand parameter assumptions that are consistent with published PEs and economic assumptions and are weighted according to expert knowledge, increasing precision in PE inference and policy predictions, and yielding somewhat stronger price effects.

Assessing the reversal of investor sentiment

Assessing the reversal of sentiment in stock markets is needed because, according to the social mood cycle, the change of social mood over time is an antecedent of price movements. The purpose of this study is to empirically assess reversal of investor sentiment, to show the phases of social mood cycle from increasing mood to decreasing mood, and to explain the dynamic change in market inefficiency from increasing to decreasing. Growth modeling, developed particularly for dealing with the change over time, is used in this study for assessing the reversal of investor sentiment. The autocovariance structure of errors and the variances/covariances of the random coefficients are all taken into account in the model. The results have indicated that the change in investor sentiment over time is inverted U-shaped for the entire market. Moreover, arbitrage constraint and stock characteristics exert a joint moderating effect on sentiment reversal. Less arbitrage constraint can strengthen sentiment reversal only when the market for individual stocks is dominated by noise traders. Based on the results obtained, we discuss asset pricing, liquidity management, and market intervention.

Uncovering urban residents’ electricity conservation and carbon reduction potentials in megacities of China–A systematic path of behavioural interventions

The ratio and quantity of residential electricity consumption in China are increasing steadily with the country's economic development; conservation of electricity consumption has special significance for reduction of carbon emissions. Based on data from 635 questionnaire surveys in four typical Chinese megacities (Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Guiyang), this study analysed the determinants of residential electricity consumption and electricity saving behaviours using the multivariate regression method, estimated the price elasticities of heterogeneous resident groups by combining the results of an elasticity formula and a multinomial logit model, and assessed residential electricity conservation potential. The results were as follows: economic indicators proved to be the factors most strongly influencing residential energy conservation behaviours; electricity elasticity varied significantly among heterogeneous demographic and income groups towards economic intervention instruments, within a scale of 0.16-0.63; and price interventions can effectively reduce residential electricity demand and reduce carbon emissions from electricity use by 3.2%-9.3%, thereby improving energy conservation. An appropriate policy mix should be adopted to reduce household carbon emissions effectively, including addressing regional disparities and expanding ladder price differences across different income groups to fulfil every resident's well-being, along with increased publicity and education efforts to improve people's energy-saving awareness in the long term.

A field experiment on workplace norms and electric vehicle charging etiquette

The increase in electric vehicles as a low-carbon mobility option has driven interest from many workplaces and local governments to offer charging services for employees, customers and visitors. However, the lack of incentives to limit over-consumption in shared charging resources has led to congestion issues. In this paper, we use high-frequency data to study two deterrence mechanisms implemented at one of the largest workplace charging programs in the United States. We study both price and nonprice interventions that encourage adoption of workplace norms and charging etiquette for resource sharing in charging stations. To study these mechanisms, we use a dynamic regression discontinuity design to separately identify treatment effects with digital platform data. Our findings provide new evidence that group norms can play an important role in driving behavioral compliance when setting EV access policies. We also find that workplace norms are complements to dynamic pricing policies. We discuss the implications of this data discovery for the effective management of common pool resources in the context of workplace charging and space-constrained environments. This article met the requirements for a gold-gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges

Price of change: Does a small alteration to the price of meat and vegetarian options affect their sales?

Reducing meat and fish consumption in wealthier countries would help mitigate climate change, raising the question of the most effective ways to achieve this. Price influences the food people buy, but to our knowledge no published field study has assessed the impact on sales of experimentally altering the price of meat and vegetarian meal options. We ran an experiment across 106 mealtimes with 13,840 meal selections at a college cafeteria in the University of Cambridge (UK), introducing a small change to the price of vegetarian meals (decreased by 20p from £2.05 to £1.85) and meat meals (increased by 20p from £2.52 to £2.72). Total meal sales did not differ significantly before and after the price change. When controlling for other variables, changing price significantly increased the proportion of vegetarian sales by 3.2 percentage points (p = 0.036). However, there was no significant change in meat sales before and after the price change, although fish sales did decline by 2.8 percentage points (p = 0.010). When analysed by individual diners’ pre-experimental meal choices (N = 325), the price intervention significantly affected only the quartile of diners with the highest prior rates of vegetarian and vegan meal selection (“MostVeg” quartile), who increased their vegetarian meal selection by 13.7 percentage points (p = 0.011). Students mainly pay for meals on their university cards and rarely pay with cash, which may lessen the impact of a price intervention in this context. Our results suggest price changes may be one lever for increasing vegetarian meal consumption. Further field studies are needed to test different price changes, and in non-university populations.

Effects of variable EU import levies on corn price volatility

The variable import levy for corn imports in the European Union aims to support European producers by insulating domestic prices from low international prices. Such price-insulating policies have been associated with an increase in global market volatility. Eliminating these distortions has been one of the key issues in international negotiations on agricultural trade liberalization, e.g., the commitment of WTO member states to follow the principle of tariffication as part of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture. Nevertheless, the Blair House Agreement effectively allowed the EU to maintain a variable import levy regime for grain imports, although the magnitude of this levy is substantially smaller than in the past. Notwithstanding that this policy has been a cornerstone of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, empirical evidence on the magnitude of its effects on price volatility is largely missing. This paper employs a multivariate asymmetric volatility model to assess these effects on domestic and foreign corn markets, using Argentina – a large exporter of corn – as an example. In line with the relevant theoretical literature, we find empirical evidence for the 2002–2017 period that the variable import levy reduced corn price volatility in the EU market, while significantly increasing volatility to the same extent in Argentina. In a distorted sense, the import levy of the EU has thus been a success, as its variable application rate has stabilized prices in the EU domestic market. However, our results show that this policy has merely shifted price volatility abroad since it has led to increases in price volatility in Argentina. A less distortionary policy to target the problems of agricultural price volatility should shift its focus away from direct price interventions. For instance, domestic policies that improve farmers’ ability to cope with price-related risks would avoid the negative effects of domestic price stabilization in foreign countries.

The socioeconomic distribution of alcohol-related violence in England and Wales.

Inequalities in alcohol-related health harms have been repeatedly identified. However, the socioeconomic distribution of alcohol-related violence (violence committed by a person under the influence of alcohol)–and of subtypes such as alcohol-related domestic violence–remains under-examined. To examine this, data are drawn from nationally representative victimisation survey, the Crime Survey for England and Wales, from years 2013/14 to 2017/18. Socioeconomic status specific incidence and prevalence rates for alcohol-related violence (including subtypes domestic, stranger, and acquaintance violence) were created. Binomial logistic regressions were performed to test whether the likelihood of experiencing these incidents was affected by socioeconomic status when controlling for a range of pre-established risk factors associated with violence victimisation. Findings generally show lower socioeconomic groups experience higher prevalence rates of alcohol-related violence overall, and higher incidence and prevalence rates for alcohol-related domestic and acquaintance violence. Binomial logistic regression results show that the likelihood of experiencing these types of violence is affected by a person’s socioeconomic status–even when other risk factors known to be associated with violence are held constant. Along with action to address environmental and economic drivers of socioeconomic inequality, provision of publicly funded domestic violence services should be improved, and alcohol pricing and availability interventions should be investigated for their potential to disproportionately benefit lower socioeconomic groups.

Does removal of value added tax on fruit and vegetables increase sale – case of a Danish retailer

ABSTRACT Pricing strategies are considered to be one of the important options in changing consumer food behaviour. As a result, there is a growing interest in studying the effects of interventions that promotes the healthy choice through price interventions. This paper aims to examine the effect of a pricing intervention on fruit & vegetables (F&V) in supermarkets. The intervention consisted of a removal of the 20% VAT Data on F&V sale and retailer – revenue was collected pre- and post-intervention in all chain-supermarkets. Users of ecological and conventional fruit and vegetables constituting our intervention group and the control group is users of ecological and conventional dairy products. We found a beneficial impact of the intervention on the sale and revenue related to fruit and vegetable products. The revenue and sale of fruit and vegetables increased by 354 952.60 DKK (24.92%) and 65 065.16 units (32.92%) respectively. Results suggest a beneficial impact on the sale and revenue related to fruit and vegetable products. Results show that the subsidy also had unintended impacts on the sale and revenue related to non-intervention products. That included adverse impact of the subsidy on unsubsidized healthy complementary products.

Quantifiable Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound Explores the Role of Protection, Rest, Ice (Cryotherapy), Compression and Elevation (PRICE) Therapy on Microvascular Blood Flow

The aim of this randomized controlled laboratory study was to evaluate the role of standardized protection, rest, ice (cryotherapy), compression and elevation (PRICE) therapy on microvascular blood flow in human skeletal muscle. Quantifiable contrast-enhanced ultrasound was used to analyze intramuscular tissue perfusion (ITP) of the rectus femoris (RF) and vastus intermedius (VI) muscles in 20 healthy athletes who were randomly assigned to PRICE or control groups. Baseline perfusion measurements (resting conditions, T0) were compared with cycling exercise (T1), intervention (PRICE or control, T2) and follow-up at 60 min post-intervention (T3). The 20 min PRICE intervention included rest, cryotherapy (3°C), compression (35 mm Hg) and elevation. After intervention, PRICE demonstrated a decrease of ITP in VI (–47%, p = 0.01) and RF (–50%, p = 0.037) muscles. At T3, an ongoing decreased ITP for the RF (p = 0.003) and no significant changes for the VI were observed. In contrast, the control group showed an increased ITP at T2 and no significant differences at T3. PRICE applied after exercise led to a down-regulation of ITP, and the termination of PRICE does not appear to be associated with a reactive hyperemia for at least 60 min after treatment.

Message framing to inform cancer prevention pricing interventions in the UK and USA: a factorial experiment, 2019

ObjectivesTo advance understanding of how message framing can be used to maximise public support across different pricing policies for alcohol, tobacco and sugary drinks/foods that prevent consumption of cancer-causing products.DesignWe...

Gendered Barriers to Formal Healthcare Utilization: Modelling Healthcare Demand in a Low-Resource Setting

This paper develops a model of healthcare demand to study healthcare choices in resource-limited settings with poor health indicators, especially for women. Using data from rural Nigeria on individual illnesses and injuries as well as the entire portfolio of locally available providers, we estimate the effect of price, distance and quality on access to care, focusing on the heterogeneous responses to these three factors by gender. We find that women are more price sensitive than men, in particular in households where they have low bargaining power, while being equally responsive to quality or distance. Using our model to simulate ex-ante the impacts of price interventions, we predict that a full price subsidy in public clinics would substantially increase both men's and women's access to formal care, and almost eliminate the observed gender gap in formal healthcare utilization. Subsidizing both public and private clinics only marginally improves overall access, but it fully eliminates the observed gender gap in addition to broadening the capacity of the health sector to respond to increased demand when public facilities have limited capacity.

Personalized coupons for lower-calorie fast-food choices among young German adults and the influence of consumers' nutritional attitudes on promotion effectiveness

PurposePersonalized price promotion (PPP) is a marketing instrument that addresses the limitations of untargeted promotions by tailoring the offers to individual customers based on their purchase histories. Current evidence on PPP is limited to its immediate effects on buying behaviors at grocery stores and food companies' economic benefits. Moreover, little is known about the role of consumer characteristics in determining how effectively this promotional tool works. Hence, we aim to assess the effectiveness of PPP in promoting healthy fast food and which consumer-specific factors affect its performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct a laboratory experiment to examine the effects of personalized and non-personalized coupons for lower-calorie fast food menus on food and calorie selection. The coupon personalization is based on participants' menu choices, calorie needs and deal proneness. The authors additionally investigate how post-intervention changes are influenced by consumers' estimation of their selected calories, and their attitudes toward nutrition.FindingsRecipients of personalized incentives are more likely than participants in the control group to redeem the offered coupons, select more healthy items and reduce their selected calories. Such changes are less likely among participants underestimating the calorie content of their menu choices and perceiving higher barriers to healthy eating. Personalized coupons perform better even among subjects receiving lower discounting levels than the control treatment.Originality/valueAs the first to evaluate the effectiveness of PPP in encouraging healthy food choices, this study highlights the potential of this cutting-edge price intervention and provides valuable implications for future research.

Near Real-Time Biophysical Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Yield Estimation to Support Crop Insurance Implementation in India

Immediate yield loss information is required to trigger crop insurance payouts, which are important to secure agricultural income stability for millions of smallholder farmers. Techniques for monitoring crop growth in real-time and at 5 km spatial resolution may also aid in designing price interventions or storage strategies for domestic production. In India, the current government-backed PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) insurance scheme is seeking such technologies to enable cost-efficient insurance premiums for Indian farmers. In this study, we used the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) to estimate yield and yield anomalies at 5 km spatial resolution for Kharif rice (Oryza sativa L.) over India between 2001 and 2017. We calibrated the model using publicly available data: namely, gridded weather data, nutrient applications, sowing dates, crop mask, irrigation information, and genetic coefficients of staple varieties. The model performance over the model calibration years (2001–2015) was exceptionally good, with 13 of 15 years achieving more than 0.7 correlation coefficient (r), and more than half of the years with above 0.75 correlation with observed yields. Around 52% (67%) of the districts obtained a relative Root Mean Square Error (rRMSE) of less than 20% (25%) after calibration in the major rice-growing districts (>25% area under cultivation). An out-of-sample validation of the calibrated model in Kharif seasons 2016 and 2017 resulted in differences between state-wise observed and simulated yield anomalies from –16% to 20%. Overall, the good ability of the model in the simulations of rice yield indicates that the model is applicable in selected states of India, and its outputs are useful as a yield loss assessment index for the crop insurance scheme PMFBY.

A neurobehavioral study on the efficacy of price interventions in promoting healthy food choices among low socioeconomic families

Given the healthcare costs associated with obesity (especially in childhood), governments have tried several fiscal and policy interventions such as lowering tax and giving rebates to encourage parents to choose healthier food for their family. The efficacy of such fiscal policies is currently being debated. Here we address this issue by investigating how behavioral and brain-based responses in parents with low socioeconomic status change when rebates and lower taxes are offered on healthy food items. We performed behavioral and brain-based experiments, with the latter employing electroencephalography (EEG) acquired from parents while they shop in a simulated shopping market as well as follow up functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the more restricted scanner environment. Behavioral data show that lower tax and rebate on healthy foods increase their purchase significantly compared to baseline. Rebate has a higher effect than lower tax treatment. From the EEG and fMRI experiments, we first show that healthy/unhealthy foods elicit least/maximal reward response in the brain, respectively. Further, by offering lower tax or rebate on healthy food items, the reward signal for such items in the brain is significantly enhanced. Second, we demonstrate that rebate is more effective than lower tax in encouraging consumers to purchase healthy food items, driven in part, by higher reward-related response in the brain for rebate. Third, fiscal interventions decreased the amount of frontal cognitive control required to buy healthy foods despite their lower calorific value as compared to unhealthy foods. Finally, we propose that it is possible to titrate the amount of tax reductions and rebates on healthy food items so that they consistently become more preferable than unhealthy foods.

Healthy Eating Policy for a provincial health authority in Atlantic Canada

Abstract Issue Poor diets, the global leading cause of death and disability, are influenced by individual and community factors. Community health care settings have the potential to shape dietary behavior through food and beverage environments, and a healthy eating culture that supports the healthier choice as the easier choice. Description of the Problem The Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) is a provincial government health authority in Atlantic Canada, responsible for delivering services to nearly 1 million people in 10 hospitals, 8 ERs, and 135 community locations. The NSHA employs over 23,400 health workers. In 2015, the NSHA centralized its governance, merging 9 regional health districts into one. Policies and procedures were re-written with a provincial focus, including a new Healthy Eating Policy (HEP) adopted in 2018. In this paper, we discuss the implementation of the HEP as a case study for how healthy eating can be fostered through continuous quality improvement. Results The policy upholds NSHA as a community leader working collaboratively with internal and external partners. To be a credible leader in changing the landscape around healthy eating, NSHA agrees to “walk the talk” and model an evidence-based healthy eating policy. A hospital in Halifax piloted pricing, placement and promotion interventions to further support healthier eating. These have been expanded to other sites across NS. Lessons 1) Internal Capacity Building - A Healthy Eating Steering Committee promotes healthy eating across the health system, including initiatives in partnership with auxiliaries, foundations and staff. 2) Improving Evaluation Infrastructure- The interventions led to strategic thinking of future point of sale systems and ways to improve data collection for evaluation 3) Academic Partnerships - NSHA and Dalhousie University formed a collaborative partnership to strengthen evaluation capacity making use of the latest evidence and methods from food environments research. Key messages The Nova Scotia Health Authority’s Health Eating Policy supports healthy eating across the province, and promotes supportive environments where the healthier choice is the easier choice. A hospital site in Halifax, NS, implemented a variety of pricing, placement and promotion interventions to promote a healthy workplace environment for employees and community members.

Retailer-led healthy pricing interventions: a pilot study within aquatic and recreation centres in Victoria, Australia

This study aimed to pilot the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of three co-developed healthy food and beverage pricing interventions in a community retail setting. Aquatic and recreation centres in Victoria, Australia were recruited to co-develop and pilot pricing interventions within their onsite cafés, for 15 weeks from January 2019. A mixed method intervention evaluation was conducted. Interviews were conducted with food retail managers to understand the factors perceived to influence implementation, maintenance and effectiveness. Customer surveys assessed support for, and awareness of, interventions. Interrupted time series analysis estimated the impact of pricing interventions on food and beverage sales. Three centres each implemented a unique intervention: (i) discounted healthy bundles ('healthy combination deals'), (ii) offering deals at specific times of the day ('healthy happy hours') and (iii) increasing the prices of selected unhealthy options and reducing the prices of selected healthier options ('everyday pricing changes'). Café team leaders did not identify any significant challenges to implementation or maintenance of interventions, though low staff engagement was identified as potentially influencing the null effect on sales for healthy combination deals and healthy happy hours interventions. Customers reported low levels of awareness and high levels of support for interventions. Everyday pricing changes resulted in a significant decrease in sales of unhealthy items during the intervention period, though also resulted in a decrease in café revenue. Co-developed healthy food and beverage pricing interventions can be readily implemented with broad customer support. Everyday pricing changes have demonstrated potential effectiveness at reducing unhealthy purchases.

RETRACTED: Forecasting biofuel production using adaptive integrated optimization network model

Abstract Recently, biofuel production has been increasing all over the world over the past few decades owing to the relative changes in energy price and policy intervention. Several research studies are focussed on producing optimal biofuel production using numerous approaches. However, those approaches have few drawbacks such as computational complexity, less accuracy, high error value rate, etc. So to overcome such shortcomings, this paper aims in developing a novel Adaptive Integrated Optimization Network (AION approach) to attain optimal biofuel production with high accuracy and minimum error value rate. Moreover, the proposed AION approach comprises four significant phases namely Pre-processing of data, Re-construction of component, Prediction of an individual and Ensemble forecasting. The initial process utilizes an empirical mode decomposition (EMD) approach to divide a raw complicated data. The reconstruction phase employs the Fine to coarse (FTC) reconstructing approach that rebuilds the IMF into two different t-testing components namely the low-frequency component and the high-frequency component. Moreover, Gray Wolf Optimization (GWO) based Adaptive Wavelet Neural Network (AWNN) and Long Short Term Memory-Recurrent Neural Network (LSTM-RNN) approaches are applied to predict the low and the high-frequency components. Then the forecasted results are summed by using an ADD operator so as to obtain absolute forecasting results. The experimental analysis reveals that the proposed AION approach provides an optimal biofuel production with enhanced accuracy, minimum error value rate, and complexity issues.

A Grammar of the Distinctive Competence Development at the Firm for the Solution of Systemic Problems

Competitiveness results from factors beyond the structural conditions and organizational boundaries, such as interorganizational cooperation. Evidence gathered in Brazilian credit unions suggests there is a social process in the firm for generating organizational capabilities and economic goods to satisfy needs defined by social structures in charge of solving market failures and structural deficiencies in the productive system. An exploratory and descriptive multiple case study with longitudinal qualitative data implemented using a systematic, computer-supported Process Tracing technique can refine a mathematical model of social phenomenon relying on a sequence of decision-making events of deterministic nature. Two case studies revealed that firms maintain relationships of cooperation and contribution with partners and structures in their organizational and environmental surroundings whenever their economic performance is constrained by competitive problems of systemic nature, for which there is no solution based on the mechanisms of market price and state intervention.

Pareto Improving Price Regulation When the Asset Market is Incomplete

Incomplete asset markets cause competitive equilibria to be constrained sub-optimal and provides scope for Pareto improving interventions. This paper examines how intervention in prices of spot market commodities may serve this purpose. We show that if fix-price equilibria behave sufficiently regular near Walrasian equilibria, Pareto improving price regulation is generically possible. We derive sufficient conditions for fix-price equilibria to be well-behaved in the neighborhood of a competitive equilibrium. An advantage of price regulation, contrasted with interventions in individuals' asset portfolios, is that it operates anonymously, on market variables.