World-wide consumer response toward food products made from genetically modified ingredients has been largely negative. However, the majority of the previous studies on consumer attitudes towards genetically modified food products were conducted in developed countries in Europe as well as Japan....

This study investigates agribusiness cooperatives' reliance on patron demand deposit accounts (PDDAs) and regional patronage as sources of capital. Approximately 13% of cooperatives surveyed carry PDDAs, typically fruit cooperatives, of which over one-half have no financial protection against...

The political economy of groups suggest that policies are more likely to be implemented if the benefits are concentrated and the costs are dispersed. The importance of the role of media in society changes the classic models. Media can awaken the sleeping masses to the dispersed costs of a policy...

Firms who sell regional or specialty products often share a collective reputation based on aggregate quality. Collective reputation can be approached as a dynamic common property resource problem. We show that for an experience good without firm traceability, individual firms have the incentive...

This study relates the social-demographic characteristics of urban Chinese consumers to their consumption of fluid milk. A Tobit model is estimated drawing on individual consumer survey data collected in urban Qingdao in China in 2005. The major results of this study indicate that fluid milk...

The discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as 'mad cow disease', in Japan caused anxiety about consuming beef and beef products. As a result, there was a sudden fall in sales of beef that hurt the Japanese beef industry as well as major beef exporters to Japan. We...