This paper tests the relationship between income inequality and trade flows. The model is based upon Helena Bohman and Désirée Nilsson (2007) and Mitra Trindade and Dalgin (2008). This paper will set up gravity model for 50 countries which includes, income distribution, population, average individual income level and GINI variable as distribution of disposable income as an explanatory variables. Results confirm that when income inequality increases in the exporting country, export of necessities increase and export of luxuries decrease. Income distribution also shows expected effect on trade flows in the importing country. When income inequality increases in the importing country, import of necessities decrease and import of luxuries increase.

Background: Today, advertising is a multi-billion industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people and affecting billions of people’s lives worldwide. Yet, seeing as advertising clutter has increased tremendously and is more intense than ever, it is vital that companies differentiate themselves from competitors by creating even more powerful, entertaining and innovative advertisement messages, as well as sponsoring different events. Examples of such companies that spend billion of dollars on marketing strategies in order to stay key players in their industry are The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. Purpose: The overall purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of different international and local factors affecting consumer preferences on a local market. Method: A quantitative method was applied, and thus a questionnaire with 150 respondents on the local market was conducted. The respondents were divided into three different age groups: ≤ 18, 19-34, and ≥ 35, and represent a diverse set of people who are at different stages in their lives. Conclusions: International advertising and international sponsorship respectively influence the local target group in different ways, but they also affect international brand in that they have an impact on brand image and brand equity. Moreover, depending on a person’s age, consumers view brands differently, and thus have an effect on international brand alone, but also in combination with international advertisement and international sponsorship. Together, these factors influence the way in which a brand is perceived, and consequently influence consumer preferences.

<p>In my dissertation, I study the link between economic growth and asset prices in stochastic endogenous growth models. In these settings, long-term growth prospects are endogenously determined by innovation and R\&D. In equilibrium, R\&D endogenously drives a small, persistent component in productivity which generates long-run uncertainty about economic growth. With recursive preferences, this growth propagation mechanism helps reconcile a broad spectrum of equity and bond market facts jointly with macroeconomic fluctuations.</p> / Dissertation

Loyalty program, which is to encourage frequent purchasing and to maintain customer long-term relationships, has become a key marketing tool in various industries. The framework of the program is to provide reward incentives based on the cumulative purchases for certain products or services. Researches show that the cost of customer retention is approximately six times lower than that of customer acquisition. Although the importance of such program rises, few researches are made related to the topic. Thus, this study is aimed at exploring the relationships between loyalty effort requirement and reward incentives in order to provide better and more efficient loyalty programs for enterprises. The effects of effort requirement on consumer preferences towards loyalty program rewards are evaluated. In addition, monetary cost acts as moderator is added in to examine the moderating effect. A 2x2 between-subject experimental design with approximately 259 sampling subjects is adopted in the study and the results are analyzed by One-Way ANOVA aided by SPSS software. The results of this study are as follows: (1) Increasing the effort requirement of loyalty programs will increase consumer preference for hedonic rewards rather than utilitarian rewards. The reason for this is that long streams of effort required for loyalty programs may serve as reasons to justify and reduce the guilt for hedonic rewards selections and consumptions. (2) When monetary costs are added to loyalty programs, no matter at low or high effort requirements, consumer preferences for hedonic rewards will decrease and in contract, preferences for utilitarian rewards will increase. (3) When monetary costs are added to loyalty programs, increasing the effort requirement of loyalty programs will not increase consumer preference for hedonic rewards. This may due to the strong monetary costs effect on the sampling subjects that ends up easing the effect of result one. Four marketing implementations for this study could be drawn. First, utilitarian rewards are more appropriate as loyalty program incentives than hedonic rewards. Marketers could provide more utilitarian rewards in loyalty programs as incentives to attract more participants. Second, as loyalty program effort requirement increases, hedonic rewards could be added in the reward mix to attract consumers. Third, loyalty program, which provide rewards by accumulative effort rather than money expenditure, may serve as a justification for hedonic rewards consumption. Thus, hedonic rewards could serve as promotion tool for high effort requirement loyalty programs. Finally, when monetary costs are added to loyalty programs, marketers could weight more utilitarian rewards in reward mix regardless effort requirement levels.

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Child obesity has become a national concern. Obesity in children ages 6-17 has more than doubled in the past 30 years. Only 20% of children today consume the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. This trend is even more pronounced in minority populations. Past studies have reported that a horticulture-based curriculum, including gardening, can improve children's attitudes toward eating fruits and vegetables. To investigate whether children of a minority population can benefit from gardening supplemented with a curriculum on nutrition, research was conducted with elementary schools in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (Hidalgo County). Elementary school teachers participating in this research agreed to have school gardens and complete all activities in a curriculum on nutrition provided to them through the Texas Extension Service. One hundred forty one children in the participating schools completed a pre- and posttest evaluating their attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge before and after gardening supplemented with information on nutrition. Statistically significant differences were detected between pre- and posttest scores for all three variables. After comparing pre-and posttest scores, it was concluded that gardening with supplemental instruction, had a positive effect on all three variables including students attitudes and snack preferences toward fruits and vegetables and their knowledge of nutrition.

Abstract A well designed salary system can influence employee¡¦s work motivation and will reflect on their work performance. It would not be difficult to understand, based on the theory of expectancy, a linkage between reward and performance will motivate employee to work harder, and from which to create good performance and in turn to receive better rewards. That is to say a business which adopts an incentive reward system to motivate employee will receive better performance from them in a consistent manner and the end result is to improve the performance of the organization. In the past, there have been many researches on influence of salary system on pay satisfaction and working attitude of employee, but few has studied differences in individual risk preference which can interfere with pay satisfaction and to explore differences in risk preference of employee, the effect of variable pay on pay satisfaction and working attitudes. Through empirical analyses, it was found that: 1. In an organization, an implementation of variable pay system will affect pay satisfaction. As salary links more closely with performance, employee¡¦s pay satisfaction increases. 2. The impact of variable pay on pay satisfaction is not influenced by individual risk preference. Due to differences in salary system to motivate employee, in the business this study concludes if employee is unaware of risk or incentive that is structured in the salary system, then there will be not interaction between difference in risk preference and variable pay system, and will also have no impact on salary satisfaction. 3. Pay satisfaction will have an effect on work attitude of employee. The higher the pay satisfaction, the stronger the organization commitment and job involvement by the employee. 4. Through pay satisfaction, variable pay will indirectly affect employee¡¦s work attitude. A reflection on organizational commitment and job involvement due to salary variable as a result of performance change in part must pass through the intermediate effect of pay satisfaction. Keywords: variable pay, risk preferences, pay satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement

<p>Background: Today, advertising is a multi-billion industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people and affecting billions of people’s lives worldwide. Yet, seeing as advertising clutter has increased tremendously and is more intense than ever, it is vital that companies differentiate themselves from competitors by creating even more powerful, entertaining and innovative advertisement messages, as well as sponsoring different events. Examples of such companies that spend billion of dollars on marketing strategies in order to stay key players in their industry are The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo.</p><p>Purpose: The overall purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of different international and local factors affecting consumer preferences on a local market.</p><p>Method: A quantitative method was applied, and thus a questionnaire with 150 respondents on the local market was conducted. The respondents were divided into three different age groups: ≤ 18, 19-34, and ≥ 35, and represent a diverse set of people who are at different stages in their lives.</p><p>Conclusions: International advertising and international sponsorship respectively influence the local target group in different ways, but they also affect international brand in that they have an impact on brand image and brand equity. Moreover, depending on a person’s age, consumers view brands differently, and thus have an effect on international brand alone, but also in combination with international advertisement and international sponsorship. Together, these factors influence the way in which a brand is perceived, and consequently influence consumer preferences.</p>

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 18, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Jung Ha-Brookshire. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Kittichai Watchravesringkan; submitted to the Dept. of Consumer, Apparel and Retail Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 28, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-121).