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Purpose – This study aims to investigate the impact of local windfall gains from the Spanish Christmas lottery on household consumption behavior. Design/methodology/approach – The study applies differences-in-differences to assess permanent income hypothesis (PIH) validity, examining pre- and postlottery consumption effects. Additionally, it also uses an instrumental variable regression, using the lottery shock as an instrument for total expenditures, to estimate the Engel curves. Findings – The paper finds a PIH violation; households in winning region notably increase consumption on durable and nondurable goods compared to nonwinning ones. Moreover, durable goods consumption is responsive to lottery winnings, while nondurable goods consumption are unit-elastic to expenditure shocks. Originality/value – To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper analyzing the effects of winning regions of the Spanish Christmas lottery in all types of consumption goods, testing its consequences in the PIH and estimating its effects in the Engel curves.

We investigate real effects of a widespread corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting mandate. In 2014, the European Union (EU) passed Directive 2014/95 (hereafter, "CSR Directive"), mandating large listed EU firms to prepare annual nonfinancial reports beginning from fiscal year 2017 onward. We document that firms within the scope of the directive respond by increasing their CSR activities and that they start doing so before the entry‐into‐force of the directive. These real effects are concentrated in firms that are plausibly more strongly affected by the directive, that is, those with previously low levels of both CSR reporting and CSR activities. Using various alternative outcome variables (e.g., new CSR initiatives, improvements in CSR infrastructure, or firm performance), we show that these real effects reflect meaningful increases in CSR beyond firms' potential attempts to "greenwash" CSR performance. Finally, we conduct tests that increase our confidence that the documented real effects are attributable to the CSR Directive and not general EU trends in CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, the inflation and output of durable and nondurable goods respond to a monetary policy shock in the same direction with a delay. However, the existing New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models that generate the positive output comovement cannot explain this delayed response in sectoral inflation. We show that adding sticky information to both goods along with heterogeneous factors of production can explain the observed patterns in sectoral inflation and output. Moreover, in line with recent empirical findings, the estimated information stickiness is larger for housing than for nondurable goods and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High expected inflation is known to predict low future real growth. We show that, relative to nondurable goods sectors of the economy, such predictability is significantly more pronounced in durable sectors. Consistent with this macroeconomic evidence, the equity returns of durable goods-producing firms have a larger negative exposure to expected inflation risks. We estimate a two-good recursive utility model that features persistent growth fluctuations and inflation nonneutrality for durable and nondurable consumption. Our model can quantitatively account for the levels and volatilities of bond and equity prices, and correlations of equity returns with bond returns and with expected inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the production and pricing strategy of a monopoly firm in the presence of the snob effect, whereby consumers value a product more when its availability is lower. Real‐world firms often intentionally cause the snob effect by strategically reducing supply quantities or even causing shortages. This observation suggests the existence of a trade‐off between utilizing the snob effect and avoiding opportunity costs. We consider a general multiperiod model in which a monopoly firm determines the dynamic paths of price and sales quantity; although consumers are not forward looking, they evaluate past stockouts with a discount factor. We find that the optimal dynamic paths of the price and output level vary depending on the degree of consumer sensitivity to stockouts, the consumer's discount factor on past shortage, and the firm's discount factor on future profit. Nevertheless, the total profit monotonically increases with the degree of consumer sensitivity to stockouts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We dissect the impact of a large and sudden exchange rate appreciation on Swiss border import prices, retail prices, and consumer expenditures on domestic and imported nondurable goods, following the removal of the EUR/CHF floor in January 2015. Cross-sectional variation in border price changes by currency of invoicing carries over to consumer prices and allocations, impacting retail prices of imports and competing domestic goods, as well as import expenditures. We provide measures of the sensitivity of retail import prices to border prices and the sensitivity of import shares to relative prices, which is higher when using retail prices than border prices. (JEL E21, E31, F14, F31, L11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans wear products and use tools that interface with their hands to provide abrasion resistance, impact protection, grip, thermal comfort, and detailed maneuvers. The skills needed to design new and innovative products for the hand are multi-faceted. Academic programs in the US typically focus on soft goods (textile and apparel) or hard goods (industrial and product design/engineering) based design. Therefore, students often do not learn all of the available skills and technologies needed to design hand wear performance products because of the pedagogical split between the different academic disciplines. This case study outlines a three-phase innovation framework, for use by designers throughout the product creation process, specifically for creating performance products and tools for the hand. The phases include strategies for: (1) understanding the hand wear and tool project background, (2) defining the user's 3D and 2D hand and (3) hand wear and tool product innovation. The paper will also demonstrate how the framework was implemented by students in a graduate level design studio, to create new gloves for athletes. The framework could also be used by students and professionals to design innovative products for other users and to improve safety and overall performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buyers of consumer non-durables tend to buy several brands of a product category in the course of a year, though a few are exclusive buyers of particular brands. The present research investigated the dynamics of successive repeat-buying and penetration levels of groups of brands belonging to similar levels of brand differentiation. It examined the probability of buying brands belonging to the same level of differentiation on successive shopping occasions. Consumer panel data for 80 consumers for weekly purchases of eight product categories over a period of 16 weeks were analysed. Since the number of exclusive buyers of a brand decreases as the duration of sales increases, we hypothesized a decrease in the probability of sequential repeat-buying of brands belonging to the same level of brand differentiation with increases in the number of successive shopping occasions. Similar analysis was undertaken to examine the penetration level of groups of similar brands, which were expected to increase with the period chosen for analysis. Two equations, constructed to describe the dynamics of repeat-buying for groups of brands, were applied to the description of the dynamics of repeat-buying and penetration level of particular brands. The results suggest several managerial applications including the estimation of the proportion of sequential repeat buyers and non-repeat buyers during the product shopping cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors study the role that reference effects play in the category purchase decision for consumer nondurable products. Category purchase behavior is represented by a nested logit model that is estimated on purchase records of shoppers in two Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner panels. A series of hypotheses are developed, modeled. and tested regarding the effects that internal reference points for product category attractiveness are likely to have on the decision to buy in a product category on a store visit. The authors hypothesize that the difference between a shopper's reference point for category attractiveness and the current level of category attractiveness will affect the purchase decision. In particular, the extent of purchase postponement caused by a loss (i.e., a negative discrepancy) should exceed the acceleration caused by a gain (i.e., a positive discrepancy). Reference effects on the category purchase decision are also hypothesized to interact with the shopper's familiarity with the store visited on a given trip. In particular, the impact of Posses is predicted to be higher in unfamiliar than in familiar stores. The authors present model estimates and test results from two product categories (saltine crackers and liquid laundry detergent) and find all hypotheses to be supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern economy, the implementation of innovative software projects for planning and managing the productive activities is an important factor in ensuring the stable development of enterprises. In this paper, we suggest treating the economic essence of such software projects as soft goods used in the productive activities of enterprises and analyze the modern models for expert assessment of their quality. The main tasks of the present study are: to perform a comparative analysis of existing models; to determine the scope of quality indicators and their main characteristics; and to provide a rationale for choosing a mathematical apparatus to obtain the target values of integral indicator for the expert quality assessment of innovative software projects. The basic methodology of the study is the systemoriented analysis; we have also used the theory of expert estimates and the theory of probability in terms of estimating the random variables, analysis of hierarchies, as well as the methodology of fuzzy sets. In addition, the combinatorial coefficients, binomial and normal distribution tools, and Bernoulli mathematical testing apparatus were used to obtain the results. The paper contributes to the literature by suggesting the composition of indicators for the assessment of the quality the innovative software projects. A developed hierarchical network of indicators makes it possible to determine the target values of integrated quality indicator for the innovative software projects. For practical applications of this methodology for the formation of a hierarchical network of indicators' properties, it is advisable to use different models simultaneously and create an individual expert system of indicators, their properties, characteristics and subcharacteristics applicable to each specific innovative software project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, an att empt has been made to analyse the levels, patt ern and distribution of consumption expenditure of the women labour households in the rural areas of Punjab. The present study relates to the year 2016-17. The study is based on a sample of 1017 women labour households. The study brings out that annual consumption expenditure of an average woman labour household is Rs. 85621.77. A major proportion, i.e., 57.34 per cent of it is spent on non-durables, whereas 14.49 per cent, 14.27 per cent and 13.90 per cent are spent on socio-religious ceremonies, services and durables respectively. In fact, the women labour households have to spend a major proportion of their income on non-durables especially on foodgrains to maintain their effi ciency. The average propensity to consume is greater than one for an average woman labour household. This has an important implication that these households are trying to keep a minimum level of consumption whether they can aff ord it or not. Therefore, they have to borrow from diff erent sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the choice process for commonly purchased non-durables was examined by tracking eye fixations in a laboratory simulation of supermarket shelving. The observed process contains three stages that were interpreted as (1) orientation, (2) evaluation, and (3) verification. Orientation consisted of an overview of the product display, although some initial screening out of alternatives also occurred. The evaluation stage, the longest by far, was dominated by direct comparisons between two or three alternative products. The last stage, devoted to verification of the tentatively chosen brand-size, mainly examined alternatives with few or no previous fixations. Greater familiarity with a product category led to a choice process that was shorter and that focused on fewer alternatives, but these effects were confined to the evaluation stage. The findings are fully compatible with the general view that the choice process is constructed to adapt to the immediate purchase environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subjects acquired information on, chose, and consumed one of five health breads once a week for six weeks. The effects of individual differences on information acquisition and recall of package information were studied. Experience during the experiment was highly related to the amount of external search and recall of package information. Information-processing style was also related to external search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hedonic index technique is used to estimate the implicit prices for units of breakfast cereal characteristics. Analysis showed that buyers value many attributes; the value placed on each is dependent upon the class of cereal evaluated. Results suggest this technique has potential for assessing buyer's purchasing behavior for nondurable goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the Fourier flexible form to jointly approximate utility and service flows from durable and nondurable goods. In contrast, parametric functions are usually not flexible enough to accurately approximate nonseparability and often give inconsistent results. This paper calls these inconsistent results the consumer consumption conundrum. I calculate Morishima elasticities of substitution because Blackorby and Russell (1989) show that the Allen-Uzawa measure of substitution is incorrect. Results show that substitution between commodities are variable over time. Therefore, policy intended to affect consumption should take the variability of substitution into account because constant elasticity of substitution functions may give misleading conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents extensions to the debate surrounding actual and permanent-income consumption modeling, addressing distinctions between the nondurable consumption patterns of heterogenous agents and the possible application of the microeconomic near-rationality model of Akerlof-Yellen for aggregate consumption dynamics analysis. Empirical testing of the model is provided, evaluating its short-run behavior accuracy and the size of its utility losses. The model's particular ability to correct for observed smoothness of wealth innovation consumption functions and sensitivity to lagged income changes is also cited.

Food retailers regularly offer products for less than normal market price in special sales or deals. This paper briefly examines several common explanations for this phenomenon and finds the analyses to be less than complete. It then presents an explanation for dealing of storable products based on the idea of transferring inventory carrying costs from the retailer to the consumer. An inventory control model is described in which both consumers and the retailer act so as to minimize their own costs. Results derived from this model are then presented. Data relevant to both the consumer and the retailer model are presented and analyzed. The conclusion is that the data are consistent with the predictions of the models. Finally, the strategic implications of the model for manufacturers and retailers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examine an important influence on the price-advertising tradeoff, the ratio of price and advertising elasticity. Their theoretical analysis stresses the cen- trality of the elasticity ratio and shows how the pass-through ratio, the fraction of loyal consumers who take advantage of price discounts, and the contribution-price ratio are additional factors that influence the price-advertising tradeoff. Empirical analysis of 262 observations from published studies indicates that the price elasticity is "on coverage" 20 times the advertising elasticity. The elasticity ratio is higher for mature products than for products in the early stage of the life cycle, and for nondurable goods than for durable goods. These findings suggest that price discounting may be more profitable than an advertising increase for nondurable goods and mature products. The ratio is smaller for elasticities estimated from yearly data than for those based on quarterly or monthly data. This finding raises a question about the appropriate level of aggregation for understanding the relative effects of price and advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four studies were conducted to assess the accuracy with which consumers perceive objective price-quality relationships. Results across four studies indicate that, overall, consumers perceive objective price-quality relationships with only a modest degree of accuracy. However, findings also suggest that the accuracy of consumers' perceptions is moderated by product type; that is, price-quality perceptions are more accurate for nondurable products than for durable products. The authors conclude that consumers' price-quality perceptions appear to be a function of general or product-type-specific schemas, rather than independent evaluations of price-quality relationships for individual product categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasts generated by five popular extrapolations are compared with each other and with a random-walk model over nearly 1500 situations. Relative to the random walk, forecasting with extrapolations is most successful on nondurable goods and series that historically have exhibited stable patterns. The amount of data available for forecasting and the product class/product form typology are not found to be important factors in the selection of an extrapolation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1970s several studies refuted the superiority of social class to income as a basis for segmenting the markets for a wide variety of durable and nondurable goods. This study also examines the relative effectiveness of social class and income, as well as their combination, over a wide range of consumption areas. The author uses frequency of usage criteria for nondurables and quality or feature-level indices for durables. MANOVA, ANOVA, and loglinear modeling results show social class to be superior to income in segmenting food and non-soft drink/non-alcoholic beverage markets, as well as shopping behavior and evening television viewing. Income is superior to social class for major appliances, soft drinks, mixers, and alcoholic beverages. The combination of income and social class is superior for makeup and clothing, as well as automobile and television ownership, and thus a modified form of the relative income and status incongruence hypotheses is supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A general procedure is outlined for estimating the sampling error in sales forecasts of new nondurable consumer products. The technique is illustrated for the Parfitt and Collins model with actual data from four new product introductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lower prices are often cited as a major factor in the growth of discount stores. For soft goods, however, well-known brand names are few and price quality comparisons difficult to make. Thus, lower prices may reflect lower quality merchandise rather than the existence of actual price "discounts." This article reports an investigation into the feasibility of comparison shopping for soft goods and the degree to which price differentials exist between discount and department stores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new kind of retail institution is selling soft goods by supermarket techniques. As usual, consumers have preceded competitors in recognizing the basic appeals. As the new stores achieve mature strength, they present serious policy problems to established merchants and to manufacturers alike. This article discusses the impact of these stores on the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital goods spending is a vital element in the structure and movement of the nation's economy. The following article reviews the development of a new and impressively accurate study in this vital field. In addition, the outlook for capital spending in the 1960s is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An examination of the composition of employment in U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 1949-1965 shows a distinct upward trend in the employment of nonproduction workers vis-&agrave-vis production workers. Nonproduction worker employment in manufacturing industries has been increasing at a faster rate in recent years than has production worker employment, which in several industries has remained stationary or has even declined. There is a distinct difference in the behavior of the ratio of nonproduction to production workers, however, in the durable and nondurable goods industries. In the former a relative change in wages of the two classes of workers has relatively little influence on the proportion in which they are employed, but change in output has a substantial effect. Because of this, the relative employment of the two labor inputs exhibits considerable cyclical fluctuation. The opposite is true for nondurable goods industries. Relative wages are more important than variations in output, and relative use of the two types of labor inputs tends to be more stable.

A method of analyzing the components of a trend in consumer purchasing is described. An empirically-based mathematical model is first used to predict the purchasing pattern in the absence of a trend. Comparison between the observed data and these predicted norms permits a detailed evaluation of the trend. Two examples of practical applications of the technique are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been recently argued that producers may not respond to every input price change in the way that a linear factor demand model would predict. This lumpy response is due to adjustment costs that are inherent in the act of adjusting the mix of inputs applied in the underlying production technologies. This study aims to provide a solid conceptual framework for these nonlinearities in factor demand relationships. Industry-specific implications of convex and nonconvex adjustment costs for the linearity of the factor demand relationships as well as price and substitution elasticities are explored. A two-regime threshold system of factor demand equations is estimated for several manufacturing industries in the United States. Empirical results suggest significant threshold effects in the factor demand relationships in most nondurable goods sectors. The size and the nature of thresholds depend upon industry characteristics, including input composition and (non)convexity of underlying adjustment costs. Complete matrices of price and substitution elasticities for each industry are derived using estimates of threshold factor demand systems. Discussion of two contrasting cases in greater detail sheds light on how the effect of price shocks on factor demand relationships varies across industries with different adjustment cost structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When consumers stockpile, static demand models overestimate long-term price responses. This article presents a dynamic model of demand with consumer inventories and proposes a shortcut to estimate the long-run price elasticities without having to solve the dynamic program. Using French data on food purchases, I find elasticities consistent with those that result from the full-blown estimations found in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased competition is making it difficult to distinguish products solely by attributes, creating room for cause-related marketing. In this study with a sample of 322 university students, we evaluated the changes in consumer attitudes toward cause and brand as consequences of Cause Brand Alliance (CBA), by using the product category as moderator. Four popular brands from two product categories, including durable and nondurable, and four causes from different cause categories involving health, human service, animal, and environment, have been used. ANOVA has been used to compare the means of consumers' responses toward cause and brand, in relation to CBA at different times. Results show that linked cause and brand improve the attitude of the consumers toward the cause as well as the brand. In the case of the cause, improvement in consumer attitude is high for the durable product category, but low for the non-durable product category. So for the brand, improvement in consumer attitude is there regardless of product categories (durable, non-durable) when it is attached to different types of causes. This improvement is high for association with human-related causes compared to that of non-humanrelated causes. Findings suggest that in forming a CBA, cause-managers should pay more attention in selecting product category for alliances, and brand-managers have to impute more interest in establishing alliance with human-related cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents various abstracts relating to marketing focused on sales and economic forecasting, including the articles "Consumer Expenditures on Nondurables and Services in 1954," by Elmer C. Bratt; "Forecasting Capital Formation in Residential Housing," by Marshall D. Ketchum; and "Forecasting Expenditures for Plant and Equipment," by Garfield V. Cox.

Swofford and Whitney (1987, 1988, 1994) investigated the validity of two key assumptions underlying representative agent models of macroeconomics. These assumptions are utility maximization and weak separability. Usingmixed integer programming, we check revealed preference conditions for these assumptions. We find that M1, money defined by Friedman and Schwartz (1963), and a broad aggregate are weakly separable. We find that consumption goods and leisure and nondurables and services are weakly separable. We find that M2, M3, and MZM are not weakly separable. Finally, we find three categories of consumption, durables, nondurables and services, do not form an aggregate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]