This dissertation contains three essays in Economic Theory. The first chapter relates to information economics and mechanism design: it studies the inefficiencies that arise from delegating information acquisition to an uninterested agent. The second and third chapter are essays in decision theory and explore the behavioral implications of certain types of incomplete preferences. In the first chapter, a principal hires an agent to acquire costly information that will influence the decision of a third party. While the realized piece of information is observable and contractible, the experimental process is not. Assuming a general family of information cost functions (inclusive of Shannon’s mutual information), we show that the first best is achievable when the agent has limited liability or when he is risk averse, in contrast to standard moral hazard models. However, when the agent is risk averse and has limited liability, efficiency losses arise generically. Specifically, we show that the principal obtains his first best outcome if and only if she intends to implement a ”symmetric” experiment, i.e. one in which the cost of generating each piece of evidence is the same. On the other hand, ”asymmetric” experiments that are relatively uninformative with high probability but occasionally produce conclusive evidence will bear large agency costs. In the second chapter, we define an elimination rule as a binary relation that is reflexive and has no strict cycle. We study the behaviors of decision makers that can be represented by certain types of menu dependent elimination rules: upward refinements, in which the elimination rule becomes more complete as the choice set grows and are consistent with the decision maker extracting increasingly more information from bigger sets; and downward refinements, in which the elimination rule shrinks as the choice set grows, and that are consistent with choice overload phenomena. Finally, we study the behavior of a decision maker with incomplete preference who uses a heuristic rule to select an arbitrary subsets of undominated elements in each choice set. We show how to use this framework to identify all choice data consistent with a certain behavioral bias, by illustrating it with both the compromise effect and the attraction effect. In the third chapter, we introduce the notion of revealed betweenness for partial orders of dimension two, i.e. that are the intersection of two linear orders: how to identify solely from binary comparisons which of three mutually incomparable alternatives is ranked as the middle one for both linear orders. We use it to provide a new set of sufficient conditions for a partial order to be of order dimension two or less, by applying a characterization of a particular class of ternary relations: betweenness relations. We finally address the issue of identifiability of this pair of criteria.

Lin, Lei. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-73). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER ONE --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- BACKGROUND --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- RESEARCH OBJECTIVE --- p.3 / Chapter 1.3 --- OUTLINE OF THIS STUDY --- p.4 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- ASYMMETRlC COMPETITION --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Previous Explanations --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- CONSUMER SUSPICION OF ULTERIOR MOTIVE --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Definition of Consumer Suspicion --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Characteristic of Consumer Suspicion of Ulterior Motives --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Consumer Suspicion of Ulterior Motives in Consumer Research --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- ATTRIBUTION --- p.16 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE --- PROPOSITION DEVELOPMENT --- p.20 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR --- STUDY ONE --- p.25 / Chapter 4.1 --- OBJECTIVES --- p.25 / Chapter 4.2 --- METHOD --- p.25 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- "Participants, Design and Stimuli" --- p.25 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Procedure --- p.27 / Chapter 4.3 --- RESULTS --- p.28 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Manipulation Check --- p.28 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Dependent Variable --- p.28 / Chapter 4.4 --- DISCUSSION --- p.32 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE --- STUDY TWO --- p.34 / Chapter 5.1 --- OBJECTIVES --- p.34 / Chapter 5.2 --- METHOD --- p.34 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- "Participants, Design and Stimuli" --- p.34 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Procedure --- p.36 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Measures --- p.37 / Chapter 5.3 --- ANALYSIS AND RESULTS --- p.40 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Manipulation Check --- p.40 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Dependent Variable --- p.42 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Attribution Inference --- p.44 / Chapter 5.3.4 --- Mediating Effects of Attribution Inferences --- p.47 / Chapter 5.4 --- DISCUSSION --- p.49 / Chapter CHAPTER SIX --- STUDY THREE --- p.53 / Chapter 6.1 --- OBJECTIVES --- p.53 / Chapter 6.2 --- METHOD --- p.53 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- "Participants, Design and Manipulation" --- p.53 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Attribution Measures --- p.55 / Chapter 6.3 --- ANALYSIS AND RESULTS --- p.57 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Manipulation Check --- p.57 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Dependent Variable --- p.57 / Chapter 6.3.3 --- Attribution Inference --- p.58 / Chapter 6.3.4 --- Mediating Effects of Product Attribution --- p.59 / Chapter 6.4 --- DISCUSSION --- p.61 / Chapter CHAPTER SEVEN --- CONCLUSIONS --- p.64 / Chapter 7.1 --- SUMMARY OF TI-IE Findings --- p.64 / Chapter 7.2 --- THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS --- p.65 / Chapter 7.2.1 --- Theoretical Contributions --- p.65 / Chapter 7.2.2 --- Practical Implications --- p.66 / Chapter 7.3 --- LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH --- p.67 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.69

Law, Ka Lai. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-86). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract (English) --- p.2 / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.3 / Dedication --- p.4 / Acknowledgements --- p.5 / Table of Contents --- p.6 / List of Tables --- p.8 / List of Figures --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.10 / Chapter 1.0 --- Overview --- p.10 / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.10 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Objectives --- p.11 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance of This Thesis --- p.12 / Chapter 1.4 --- Organization of The Thesis --- p.13 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review & Model Development --- p.14 / Chapter 2.0 --- Overview --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1 --- Literature Review on Licensing Effect --- p.14 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Components of Licensing Effect --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Licensing Effect and Its Mediator --- p.16 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Rejection of Alternative Explanations --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2 --- Literature Review on Guilt-Reduction Mechanism --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Guilt --- p.20 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Guilt-Reduction Mechanisms --- p.21 / Chapter 2.3 --- Conceptual Model and Hypotheses --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Conceptual Model --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Hypotheses --- p.24 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Research Methodology --- p.28 / Chapter 3.0 --- Overview --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1 --- Research Design --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2 --- Pretest --- p.29 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Relative Luxury Items --- p.30 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Scenario Development --- p.31 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Questionnaire Development --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Procedures --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3 --- Main Study --- p.36 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Participants --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Design --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Materials --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Scenarios --- p.38 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Manipulation Checks --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3.5 --- "Dependent, Mediator and Other Measures" --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3.6 --- Procedures --- p.41 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Results And Discussion --- p.43 / Chapter 4.0 --- Overview --- p.43 / Chapter 4.1 --- Manipulation Checks --- p.43 / Chapter 4.2 --- Reliability and Validity of Scales --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Reliability Analysis --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Construct Validity --- p.45 / Chapter 4.3 --- Hypothesis Testing --- p.47 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- MANOVA --- p.47 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- MANOVA by Path Analysis --- p.51 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussions --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.58 / Chapter 5.0 --- Overview --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1 --- Contributions --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Theoretical Contribution --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Managerial Contribution --- p.59 / Chapter 5.2 --- Limitations --- p.60 / Chapter 5.3 --- Future Research Directions --- p.61 / Chapter 5.4 --- Conclusion --- p.62 / Appendix --- p.63 / References --- p.82

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, December 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1979.

No description available.

The term in-house brands refers to products that are sold to retail outlets where the store name appears on the packaging instead of the manufacturer’s name or brand name (Brickman, 1988:24). The introduction, presence and behaviour of such brands, has added a significant dimension to the marketing of food products. In-house food brands have been around in South African supermarkets for almost fifteen years and consumers long regarded such products as “cheap and nasty generic substitutes for the real thing rolled out by retailers during recessions and discarded once the economy picks up again; however, times have changed and so has the quality standards of such products. High quality in-house brands are now found in retail outlets some of them commanding premium prices. Some market observers still attribute the growth and success of in-house food brands to hard economic times whilst others believe that this growth trend is here to stay and will continue to grow because in-house food brands now provide acceptable quality at reasonable prices. Consumers are giving less importance to manufacturer brands and retailers are becoming more proficient at managing their in-house brands. In this study, research was conducted to investigate consumers’ perceptions of in-house food brands in Durban’s major food retailers. To evaluate how consumers perceive the prices, and quality of in-house food brands. To evaluate the influence of in-house brands positioning on consumers’ purchasing decision, to determine market factors which are influencing consumers in respect of in-house brands, to investigate consumers’ loyalty to such products as well as the categories which consumers prefer and finally to investigate if there is any relationship between consumers’ disposable income and their loyalty to consume in-house brands. The literature review assisted in placing this study into context and preparing for the collection of primary data to answer the research questions. Consumers around Durban’s Commerce and Business District participated in this study and responded to a questionnaire that focused on the consumers’ perceptions regarding the areas mentioned above. The findings from the analysis of data show that consumers are drawn to purchase inhouse brands because of the low prices, the quality of in-house food brands has been raised to acceptable levels, in some cases retailers are offering premium quality in-house brands, favourable positioning of in-house brands has an influence on consumers’ decision to purchase in-house brands, consumers no longer see in-house food brands as substitutes because the quality of such products is now very good, and finally, the study found that there is no relationship between consumers’ income levels and their loyalty to in-house food brands. The recommendations that were made to in-house brands retailers were that: in-house brands retailers should invest more in innovation, research and development, they must come up with attractive packages, they should compete with manufacturer brands on both quality and prices and not just on prices alone and they must increase product visibility through creative product positioning. It was also recommended that future studies should be undertaken to study the factors that need to be taken into consideration before in-house food brands are introduced so as to avoid in-house brand failure. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

Thesis (PhD) -- University of South Australia, 1999

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on March 24, 2009) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.(Consumer Science)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.