Evaluating consumer product hazards

A regression analysis is described which correlates the hazard level of a group of consumer products according to several definitions of hazard with potentially dangerous characteristics of products and their use. A surprisingly good fit to the data is observed and various observations are drawn from the analysis, among them that open flames are characteristic of high injury potential, but flammability is not. Hypotheses and open questions concerning the human factors of product safety and government intervention in the marketplace as a regulator of product safety are discussed.     

论鲍德里亚符号消费理论的理论渊源

让·鲍德里亚（Jean Baudrillard,1929．7—2007．3）,“一个在后来反对符号统治但又用符号进行写作的人。”其早期符号消费理论作为西方马克思主义思想不可分割的一部分,深化和扩展了马克思消费思想,同时为现代人更深刻地了解消费活动提供了新的视角。从理论源起来说,每种理论都有它出现的理由,都是一种历史的产物。鲍德里亚的符号消费理论亦不例外,本文就鲍德里亚符号消费理论的理论渊源做一综述。     

Is the consumer price index a fair measure of inflation?

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is widely used to adjust wages and federal benefits as an offset to inflation, but the index contains substantial sources of bias as used for such purposes. For instance, these sources of bias, such as changes in the real cost of petroleum, the cost of environmental protection, and an inappropriate method for measuring homeownership costs, accounted for nearly half of the CPI increase in the year from November 1978 to November 1979. Because of the nature of the index, such biases will always be present, creating the risk that the CPI may be adding to the inflation that it is only supposed to measure. Therefore, a new index or indexes that are more appropriate for adjusting wages and benefits for inflation should be developed.     

The impact of consumer advocates on regulatory policy in the electric utility sector

We examine the effect of consumer advocate participation in administrative procedures on regulatory policy. We use a unique panel database of rate reviews conducted for US electric utilities from 1980 to 2007 to assess how state consumer advocates affect Public Utility Commission decisions on utilities’ allowed financial returns and rate structures. We find first that utilities experience fewer rate reviews in states with consumer advocates, consistent with utilities strategically postponing requests for rate increases. Second, after controlling for observed and unobserved state characteristics, we find that PUCs in states with consumer advocates permit returns on equity that are on average 0.45 percentage points lower than states without advocates—equivalent to a $7.9 million (3.7 %) reduction in average utility operating income, all else equal. Third, consumer advocates are associated with lower residential rates relative to other customer classes. Our findings provide statistical support for the thesis that institutionalizing interest group representation in administrative procedures is one way for legislatures indirectly to influence agency-determined policies.     

Varieties of consumer credit data regimes: A regulatory governance approach

Credit markets are expanding, and with them also the automated, large‐scale commercialization of personal credit data. The increasing use of data and scores for commodified decision making lends greater urgency to the study of credit data regulatory regimes. This article promotes a comparative regulatory governance perspective as the basis for theory‐driven, multidimensional measurement. In order to measure consumer protection, we distinguish three different subregimes (collection, profiling, and use) and construct a two‐dimensional index of consumer protection (market restriction and user empowerment). We then assess the index and demonstrate its applicability and validity, building on empirical analysis of the regulatory regimes in the United States, France, Sweden, and Israel for the year 2019. Our approach points to a new direction in researching and measuring regulatory regimes in a comparative manner, which looks beyond national analysis toward an in‐depth understanding of other, equally important, levels of variation.     

Public policy toward life saving: Should consumer preferences rule?

Needless to say, people who face risks that entail a high probability of death are willing to pay extraordinarily large sums to reduce the probability. Those that face low risks are typically unwilling to pay anything at all to reduce those risks. Accordingly, a public policy that would allocate funds to maximize the number of lives saved conflicts sharply with the willingness-to-pay criterion. Information about their survival probabilities always increases willingness of individuals to pay for life saving. Risk-aversè individuals may reject insurance for the treatment of fatal diseases that is fairly priced, even if they plan to pay for the treatment if they get sick; this result has implications regarding the choice of treatment or prevention. If the objective of public policy is to save the largest number of lives, then the allocation of funds must be made before individuals are affected by life-threatening risks.     

The heterogeneity of consumer sentiment in an increasingly homogenous global economy

Recent investigations concerning consumer confidence in the U.S. have shed light on both the economic and political forces that contribute to its dynamics. And yet, as the recent financial crisis makes clear, the world economy is an increasingly interdependent place. This paper explores whether, in fact, consumer confidence responds differently to economic events in different political and institutional contexts. Our preliminary findings indicate that consumer confidence has shared variance in four countries for which we have data, but also unique variance with origins in national politics.     

Consumer capture of regulatory institutions: The creation of public utility consumer advocates in the United States

We examine the conditions under which state legislatures in the United States organized public utility consumers during the 1970s and 1980s by creating independent consumer advocates with resources and authority to intervene in public utility rate-making procedures. While economic factors, notably utility fuel cost increases, were important predictors, state political conditions were estimated to have a larger impact on the probability of implementation. We find that the pattern of adoption is consistent with the hypothesis that legislatures deploy institutions as a mechanism for insulating regulatory policies against future reform: in general, Democrat-controlled governments were significantly more likely to implement consumer advocates when they were less certain about being re-elected to office during this period. We find also that the effect of political re-election expectations was particularly acute for the creation of advocates representing solely residential consumers, a relatively disorganized interest group. Our results suggest that legislatures organize and publicly fund interest groups to protect supportive but vulnerable groups against adverse future political environments.     

Cell phone roulette and “consumer interactive” quality

Under current policies, cell phone consumers face a lower probability of finding the best carrier for their usage patterns than winning at roulette. Corroborating survey data consistently show significant dissatisfaction among cell phone users, network performance is a major issue, and customer “churn” is high. This problem may be traced to a new form of “consumer interactive” quality characteristic of emergent high technology products such as cell phone and broadband services. This problem is unlikely to be resolved by effective search and sampling, efficient secondary markets, or voluntary carrier disclosure. Traditional one‐dimensional disclosure responses to this new variation on an old asymmetric information problem should give way to a more multi‐faceted and fine‐grained policy approach. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Hospital selective contracting without consumer choice: What can we learn from Medi‐Cal?

In the selective contracting era, consumer choice has generally been absent in most state Medicaid programs, including California's (called Medi-Cal). In a setting where beneficiary exit is not a threat, a large payer may have both the incentives and the ability to exercise undue market power, potentially exposing an already vulnerable population to further harm. The analyses presented here of Medi-Cal contracting data, however, do not yield compelling evidence in favor of the undue market power hypothesis. Instead, hospital competition appears to explain with greater consistency why certain hospitals choose to contract with Medi-Cal while others do not, the trends in inpatient prices paid by Medi-Cal over time, and the effect of price competition on service cutbacks, such as emergency room closures. Copyright 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.