1,720,991 research outputs found
Estimation of unobservable selection effects in on-line surveys through propensity score matching: An application to public acceptance of healthy eating policies
Full text linkThe use of model-based propensity scores as matching tools opens the way to the indirect estimation of mode-related measurement effects and selection effects in web surveys, including a component of selection that cannot be traced back to observable characteristics. By matching and comparing respondents from real independent surveys that use the same questionnaire, but different administration modes, it becomes possible to isolate the selection effect induced by unobservable (or unobserved) respondent characteristics. This study applies a stratification matching algorithm to compare a web survey from a proprietary panel with a computer-assisted telephone survey based on random digit-dialing. The experiment is run in two countries (UK and Italy) to check for consistencies across different cultures and different internet penetration rates. The application to the elicitation of support for healthy eating policies indicates large and significant measurement and selection effects. After controlling for differences in the observed characteristics of respondents and the intensity of internet use, findings suggest that web surveys record lower support and higher neutrality. Similarly, after controlling for administration mode and observed respondent characteristics, internet users are less likely to state support compared to non-users. This suggests that unobserved characteristics play a major role, and post-stratification weighting is not a sufficient countermeasure. As demonstrated by the cross-country comparison, rising internet penetration rates are not a guarantee against this type of error, as disparities in these unobserved characteristics are likely to increase at the same time.</div
Out-of-home eating frequency, causal attribution of obesity and support to healthy eating policies from a cross-European survey
No full textBackground: The relation between the increased out-of-home food consumption and the rising of overweight and obesity prevalence rates has been widely assessed, and the a key role played by the catering sector in ensuring healthy food choices has been recognised. Governments’ healthy eating policies have a wide range of action, influencing consumer behavior, and the socioeconomic and food environments, with specific actions for the catering sector. Information on the public support for these policies could help policy makers in planning decisions. This study aims to investigate the relationship of out-of-home eating frequency with beliefs about obesity causes, support to healthy eating policies, and with socio-demographic factors.Methods: Data on 3003 individuals from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Poland and United Kingdom, of both sexes, aged ≥16 years, were employed, from the European survey on policy preferences (Eatwell). Data were analysed through Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis.Results: Out-of-home eating varied with gender, age, marital status, education, BMI, and by country. Convenience food consumption was positively associated with obesity attribution to genetics, and inversely associated with attribution to lack of willpower. Attributions of obesity to lack of time, and to lack of self-control were associated with increased likelihood to consume fast-food and ready-prepared food respectively. Out-of-home eating people expressed higher support for information-based prevention, and actions aimed at healthier out-of-home eating, and lower support for restrictions and regulations of the food supply environment.Conclusion: Future research on out-of-home food consumers and their support towards public interventions for the catering sector, could have important implications for effective strategies to promote healthy eating.</p
Discrete choice models and continuous demand systems in the scanner data age
No full textThe growing availability of high-frequency scanner data, collected either at the retail or at the household level, has brought new perspectives and challenges to the estimation of empirical demand models. This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art and perspectives of demand systems and discrete choice models in order to compare them in relation to five key theoretical and technical challenges: (1) dealing with zeroes, that is, non-purchases and corner solutions; (2) product aggregation and category-level policy analysis, quality choices and price data; (3) endogeneity of prices and expenditure; (4) habits, dynamic models and intertemporal optimization (for example, stockpiling); (5) consumer observed and unobserved heterogeneity and tastes
Food purchasing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from Italian household scanner data
Full text linkThis study analyses food and drink purchasing patterns of the Italian population after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Based on governmental restrictions at national and regional level, we explore changes in consumption behaviour due to enacted restrictions. Several phenomena may have affected food and drink purchases: (i) closure of restaurants and bars, schools and workplaces necessary implies a shift towards home consumption of meals, hence a higher quantity of food and drink purchased for consumption at-home, due to substitution; (ii) fewer visits to stores because of stay at home restrictions and anticipation of potential food shortages may induce stockpiling and online shopping; (iii) the quality (as proxied by unit values) of purchased food may change because of fewer promotions and increased propensity to save money; (iv) increased time availability because of abridging commuting time and cancelling out-of-home leisure activities may cause a shift towards purchases of raw ingredients, and a decrease in purchases of ready meal and convenience foods; (v) increased psychological distress caused by imposed restrictions and negative news may increase emotional consumption of some food and drinks.
In order to test for the relevance of these factors, we use household scanner data on food and drink purchases in Italy, covering food weekly purchases and soft-drinks daily purchases for a panel of nearly ten thousand households over the years 2019 and 2020
Consumers’ willingness to pay for meat produced without using antibiotics: a hedonic price analysis in Italian supermarkets
No full textBackground
Global consumption of antibiotics in animal farming largely exceeds human health care usages by representing a major threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria spreading in the environment and along the agri-food supply chain: thus, health institutions, policy makers and private stakeholders multiply the initiatives promoting a more prudent use. In Italy, since 2016, the main supermarket chains have been proposing lines of animal products obtained without or with a reduced use of antibiotics in farms, which tripled sales between 2017 and 2019. In the poultry meat market, about 40% of total sales originate from certified production obtained without using antibiotics. Our study intends to quantify the current willingness to pay of Italian consumers for such goods.
Methods
Data on prices and marketing characteristics of broiler breast were collected in supermarkets of three towns in Northern Italy. 173 observations led to identify 75 different product attributes related to price: production systems (e.g. organic, without antibiotics, improved animal welfare, etc.), types of cuts (slices, thin slices, etc.), size and types of packaging, brands, supermarket chains, shop size and location (city center, suburbs, etc.). A hedonic price model was developed by aggregating the identified attributes into 14 binary variables. The aggregation was validated by interviews to marketing experts from two big companies of the poultry industry.
Results
The hedonic price analysis assumes a condition of competitive market equilibrium and that the price of one good results from consumer preferences for its specific attributes. In our model, broiler breast produced without antibiotics and with improved animal welfare standards benefits on average a 14.6% price increase with respect to similar products not claiming this characteristic. The attribute showing the higher impact on price is the “organic product” certification (66.4% increase on average). Other characteristics originating remarkable price increases are the cut in slices (+15.6%) and thin slices (+21.4%), producer brands (+18.6%) compared to supermarket and discount brands, and shop location in a metropolitan city centre (+12.4%).
Conclusions
The 14.6% average price increase for “antibiotic-free” products in the Italian competitive market of broiler breast is justified by the greater utility perceived by consumers. However, such an increase is about of the same size obtained by other more conventional marketing attributes, like the type of cut and brands. The rapid growth of “antibiotic-free” poultry meat supply in Italy may have already led consumers to consider this attribute as an almost ordinary feature of the product. The significantly higher prices paid for “organic” broiler breast is supposedly due to higher production costs and its destination to more willing-to-spend consumers. But it may also be assumed that consumers consider organic products as “antibiotic-free”, which is not true under the current EU regulations. These aspects should be further investigated
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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