In this study we address the following question: does friendship facilitate the adoption of a risk inherent new product? We did a validation study with a previously recorded friendship network and simulated scenario of a new energy drink. We learn that spill over effect for such a friendship...

Obesity is still on the rise, leading to high costs for the obese individual itself but also for society. We analyze the influence of peer effects on food choices in lunchrooms with posted nutrition facts. Data were collected in a lunchroom at a large U.S. university. Groups of four patrons each...

This paper addresses the challenges facing China in accelerating the pace of rural-urban migration as part of its on-going economic development programme. It explains the push and pull influences on migration and in particular explains why a continuing focus on urbanisation is justified by the...

This study empirically examines the effects of farm organization (separation of ownership and control) on farmer effort and farm success using a structural equation model and data from the 2005-2010 Agriculture Management Resource Survey. Contrary to expectations of existing theory, the results...

Food processing has been widely recognized as a traditional, unskilled-labor intensive production. Yet rapid development in technology drives food processing into more sophisticated and technology-oriented industry. This paper utilizes a fixed effects model to test the hypothesis that the food...

Integrating the concerns of stakeholders into the decision process can be particularly important when adopting a new technology. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) offers many potential benefits to the healthcare industry. However, hospital administrators who are examining this technology may...

This paper uses stated and revealed preference data from a choice-based conjoint survey instrument to estimate willingness to pay for distance-based local food products. The survey was administered to three different groups of respondents: members of a consumer buying club, a random sample of...

In this paper we applied a dynamic estimation procedure to inves- tigate the role of obesity on the demand for soda. The dynamic model accounts for storing behaviors, and allowed us to study price sensitiv- ity as well as sale sensitivity of soda consumers. By matching store level data to...