In the hedonic coalition formation game model Roles Based Hedonic Games (RBHG), agents view teams as compositions of available roles. An agent's utility for a partition is based upon which role she fulfills within the coalition and which additional roles are being fulfilled within the coalition. I consider optimization and stability problems for settings with variable power on the part of the central authority and on the part of the agents. I prove several of these problems to be NP-complete or coNP-complete. I introduce heuristic methods for approximating solutions for a variety of these hard problems. I validate heuristics on real-world data scraped from League of Legends games.

This paper’s aim is to outline a general model of the indicators of box office revenue for the top performing movies in history. The experience industry is different from most other in that the consumer good consist to a large extent of an emotion arousal. It thus lacks many of the features of normal consumption goods and the consumption experience is entirely based on previous experiences of similar kind. Demand for experiences has two important influencers: income and leisure time. An increase in any of the two will increase demand for movie tickets. Production of experiences is based on a combination of an available set of attributes that are combined into goods in a monopolistic competition setting. It is assumed that quality is a function of educated labour. These attributes were measured using hedonic price theory. This allows pricing of every unique attribute of movies individually, based on what the willingness to pay was in previous movies. Fifteen possible variables were tested in two models and the most important were shown to be actor, length, sequel, visual effects, age of actor, MPAA-rating and category (animations and dramas). All variables carried expected signs except the actor variables. It is concluded that production companies are not entirely meeting the quality demands of the audience. Consumers are trying to reduce risk in consumption by referring to previous consumption experiences, and consumers have, according to the results, particularly strong positive experiences of movies with the kind of features that are significant in the test.

The purpose of this research is to determine if a consumer’s demographics, perceived consumer effectiveness, and awareness of fair trade practices affect their level of hedonic and utilitarian motivations that ultimately influence their purchase intentions. Two separate studies were conducted: a focus group and a survey. Middle-aged and older respondents were more motivated to buy fair trade clothing by both hedonic and utilitarian motivations than younger respondents. Respondents with only some college or an Associate’s degree are more hedonically motivated than other education levels. Respondents with a high household income are more motivated by their hedonic and utilitarian motivations than respondents with a low income. Respondents with high PCE responded more to their hedonic and utilitarian motivations to buy fair trade clothing than consumers with low PCE. Respondents that see promotional campaigns for fair trade clothing are overall less motivated to buy fair trade clothing than respondents that do not. Respondents that feel that people could make fairer choices if they were aware of which companies had high ethical principles are overall more motivated than respondents that feel people could not. As a respondent’s buying intention grew, the respondent grew more motivated in both hedonic and utilitarian categories.

Using Lancaster’s characteristics approach to consumer theory the study investigates the impact of a variety of characteristics on the rates charged for hotel rooms in Stockholm. In particular, it examines how a number of these characteristics explain variations in room rates between weekdays and weekends. Data for 105 observations (weekday sample) and 110 observations (weekend sample) were extracted from 49 hotels in and around the Swedish capital of Stockholm from the Internet-based hotel booking site hotels.com. Based on semilog regression analysis three models for the whole sample, weekday sample and weekend sample were estimated. The results show that the provision of breakfast, distance from the city center, availability of minibar in a room, provision of free cancellation option, average room size, number of guest rooms (hotel size) and hotel star rating have significant effects on both weekday and weekend room rates. By contrast, the presence of bathroom and the provision of free parking space turned out to be insignificant in both models; whereas the provision of a 24-hour room service and association with hotel chain appear to be significant only in the weekday model. The impact of the star variable is also found to be more pronounced during the weekdays than weekends. These results are expected to shed light on which hotel characteristics consumers have to pay extra, and enhance hotel managers’ strategic pricing. The study also highlights the critical role of a proper definition and measurement of the hotel star rating in hedonic pricing.Many hedonic studies have regressed the number of stars, which are ordinal measures of quality that indicate the relative ranking of hotels, in their cardinal sense. As a result, they have failed to measure the impact of each rating independently. To solve this recurrent problem, the study attempts to provide another method of quantifying the star variable whereby one can accurately measure the star rating and capture the impact of each rating independently by creating “one less dummy variable than there are alternatives”. It is hoped that this will inspire further research and analysis.

Servicescape is a research area within service management which processes the effect that the environment has on the service experience. The purpose of this essay is to find out how servicescape, with focus on the “background music”, affects customer behavior in a clothing retail store. Through manipulation of the background music’s tempo the essay aim to explore to what extent this part of the servicescape a) affect the customers approach and avoidance behavior, b) is affected by customers with a hedonic or utilitarian shopping behavior, c) affects pleasure, arousal and dominance perceptions for the customer, and d) how the servicescape is perceived. Key words: Servicescape, approach-avoidance behaviour, pleasure, arousal, dominance, hedonic-utilitarian behaviour.

The research methodology comprises theoretical, empirical and evaluation stages.  The theoretical stage provides evidence that substantiates the need for the study and outlines possible ways to address spatial elements in hedonic price modelling.  The empirical stage illustrates the application of GIS and spatial statistics in the estimation of hedonic models for housing markets in Glasgow, Scotland, using 2,715 house prices for 2002 and 61 independent variables.  GIS is used in this study to construct spatial variables including detailed accessibility measures, to help detect the hedonic problems of heteroscedasticity and spatial autocorrelation, and for visualisation.  Spatial statistics are used to test formally and model explicitly the spatial autocorrelation.  The evaluation stage assesses 46 hedonic models, using OLS and spatial hedonic, for <i>a priori </i>segmentations involving the spatial, structural and nested sub-markets.  It also draws general conclusions about the importance of detailed accessibility measures and spatial statistics in sub-market modelling. This study finds that the nested sub-market modelling using a spatial hedonic approach is most effective, followed by the spatial and structural sub-markets.  The OLS sub-market modelling generally reduces spatial autocorrelation but does not eliminate it.  There is a greater incidence of spatial autocorrelation when the market size, with measured by geographical area or density of dwellings is larger.  The spatial hedonic modelling improves the performance of the individual OLS models and the three segmentation approaches, although the relative performance of the latter remains unchanged.  Nevertheless, will the spatial hedonic, the entire market model outperforms the OLS model of structural sub-markets.  <i>Flat</i>-based OLS sub-market models benefit substantially from the spatial hedonic.  The results also suggest that an individual accessibility measure is more significant than the zonal measure because it is able to capture the micro effect of location on price.  Further, spatial statistics produce more accurate, robust and reliable estimates of implicit prices.

Doctor of Philosophy (Phd) / Despite an abundance of evidence demonstrating that the temporal relationship between events is a key factor in an organism learning an association between those events, a general theoretical account of temporal contiguity has remained elusive. A particular question that has received little attention is whether behaviour established with strong contiguity can be maintained when contiguity is weakened. The primary aims of this thesis were to examine the mechanisms underlying both the effects of contiguity on learning in rats and humans and the maintenance effect described above. The experiments reported in this thesis demonstrated that rats’ lever-pressing for food/sucrose acquired with immediate reinforcement persisted when a trace/delay that would have prevented acquisition was subsequently introduced, provided the lever was a valid signal for reinforcement. In classical conditioning with a 10-second trace, rats performed magazine-entry during lever-insertion (goal-tracking) instead of lever-pressing (sign-tracking); with zero-trace, rats both sign- and goal-tracked if lever-insertion time was 10 seconds, while goal-tracking dominated with 5-second lever-insertion time. Furthermore, while it was found that context-US associations may interfere with CS-US learning, context conditioning did not contribute to the retardation of sign-tracking in trace conditioning. Overall, these results are consistent with the theory that a localisable manipulandum that signals an appetitive outcome with strong contiguity acquires hedonic value, and that such hedonic value drives lever-pressing behaviour that is resistant to changes in the conditions of reinforcement. Human performance in a conditioned suppression task was inversely related to trace interval, but this apparent contiguity effect was at least partially mediated by the number of distractors during the trace interval, as predicted by Revusky’s concurrent interference theory. Furthermore, some transfer of conditioned suppression was observed when the trace was subsequently lengthened. Despite the different explanations proposed to account for rat and human performance in these experiments, the results suggest that the effects of contiguity on learning may be driven by similar underlying mechanisms across species.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-164).

abstract: Celiac Disease (CD) is now widespread as one in 133 people are currently diagnosed, while there were only one in 150 in 2006. Much of the research concerning CD is still in the early stages, as formal epidemiological studies are relatively recent. CD is aggravated by the consumption of gluten, which is found mainly in wheat, rye, oats, and barley. Not surprisingly, the rising prevalence of CD has created a significant business opportunity for food manufacturers in developing products that are tailored to CD sufferers. While the entire Gluten-Free (GF) industry has been experiencing double digit growth rates, the expansion in available snack foods has outstripped all others. Observation of GF snack food prices suggests that food manufacturers are responding to high retail prices associated with GF foods. However, GF foods are often also advertised with other attributes that generally sell for a premium over conventional foods. Therefore, whether the high retail price for GF snack foods can be attributed specifically to the GF attribute is an empirical question. The objective of this research is to determine whether there is a retail-price premium for GF snack foods and, if there is, to estimate its magnitude. A hedonic pricing model is used to answer this question. Specifically, a hedonic pricing model was applied to a unique dataset of snack food products in order to estimate the marginal value for the GF attribute, while controlling for a number of other important attributes. Results show that the GF attribute is both economically and statistically significant, implying a premium of nearly $1.86 above gluten-containing products. Production costs for smaller manufacturers can be two to three times higher for GF foods relative to non-GF foods, but this still implies an excess premium of over $0.50 (assuming 40% margins). However, high premiums may not last as large retailers are utilizing their influence over suppliers to keep retail margins low. Therefore, the primary implication of the research is that the rapid growth in recent years can easily be explained on economic grounds for large agribusinesses, as this implies a major profit opportunity. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Agribusiness 2010

This thesis examines the antecedents of felt ethnicity (i.e. how one feels towards one’s ethnic identity) within a sample of bicultural individuals living in Hawaii, and secondly investigates the relationship between felt ethnicity and purchasing intentions for products in two different categories, which are hedonic (e.g. emphasizing being able to enjoy the usage of a product such as a LouisVuitton handbag) and utilitarian (e.g. emphasizing the functionality of a product such as a pen or a notepad). The investigations consider conceptual and measurement issues surrounding the concept of felt ethnicity, the effects of ethnic-related brand names in priming different aspects of identity, and effects on biculturals’ product evaluation and purchasing intentions. The investigation draws upon theories of social identity and distinctiveness, and examines situational attributes such as whether the intended purchase is for friends or family members. This study consisted of a three-way experimental design experiment from a laboratory setting to examine the relationship among biculturals’ felt ethnicity, language cues and product types on purchasing intentions. A 2 felt ethnicity (Japanese and Japanese-American) x 2 language ethnic primes (Japanese vs. English) x 2 product types (Hedonic vs. Utilitarian) factorial design is featured to explore the role of social situations in the relationship of felt ethnicity and consumption (product preference and purchasing intentions). The sample consisted of 197 Japanese and Japanese-American biculturals; and the findings showed that consumer and product types and language cues are strong influences on product preferences and purchasing intentions. The more specific a bicultural is with his/her felt ethnicity, the clearer is the role of language cues in product preference, product evaluation and purchasing intentions. Social surroundings showed moderating effects between bicultural consumers’ felt ethnicity and purchasing intentions. These findings suggest that the use of language cues from various product types to reinforce their felt ethnicity (self-identity varies in different situations). This study makes a number of important theoretical and managerial contributions. First, this study clarifies the concept of bicultural felt ethnicity in respect of purchasing intentions, and reaffirms the concept of cultural frame switching using language cues as primes. In this way, the thesis presents a new conceptual model and resolves some measurement issues of felt ethnicity and three antecedents: self-acculturated identity, perceived parental identity (how one perceived his/her parents define their ethnic identity), social orientation (degree one socializes with people who of the same or different ethnicity with one’s own ethnic identity). Second, the findings suggest that felt ethnicity can be used as a tool to investigate biculturals in a global market and to facilitate market segmenting and communication. Finally, limitations of the thesis are recognised and direction for future research is proposed.