Topic Consumers

Who Cares about Social Image?

This paper experimentally investigates how concerns for social approval relate to intrinsic motivations to purchase ethically. Participants state their willingness-to-pay for both a fair trade and a conventional chocolate bar in private or publicly. A standard model of social image predicts that all increase their fair trade premium when facing an audience. We find that the premium is higher in public ...

Secondary Use of Personal Data: An Economic Analysis

The European Commission is currently overhauling the most important instrument for the regulation of cross-border flows of personal data, the Data Protection Directive of 1995 (Directive 95/46/EC). Among the most tedious legal issues is the use of personal data for secondary purposes. Such use occurs if data collected for one purpose (such as credit granting) are later used for another purpose (e.g. ...

The 7th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and supported by the Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an...

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2016

Big data is transforming the world we live in. The instant availability of information impacts how individuals consume, how businesses thrive or fail, how society makes scientific discoveries, as well as how governments design and implement informed policies. At a pace and scale unanticipated 20 years ago, information technology is enabling consumers globally. Uncountable services make use of a...

The 6th Berlin IO Day

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and supported by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the fall and in the spring. The aim is to create an international forum for high quality research...

Leisure and Housing Consumption after Retirement: New Evidence on the Life-Cycle Hypothesis

We revisit the alleged retirement consumption puzzle. According to the life-cycle theory, foreseeable income reductions such as those around retirement should not affect consumption. However, we first recall that given higher leisure endowments after retirement, the theory does predict a fall of total market consumption expenditures. In order not to mistake this predicted drop for a puzzle we focus ...

Three Topics in Agriculture: Private Quality Standards, Marketing Channels, and Biochar ; Dissertation

Signals Sell: Designing a Product Line when Consumers Have Social Image Concerns

One important function of consumption is for consumers to show off their taste, virtue or wealth. While empirical observations suggest that producers take this into account, existing research has concentrated on analyzing the demand side. This paper investigates how a monopolist optimally designs its product line when consumers differ both in their taste for quality and their desire for a positive ...

Does Financial Education Impact Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior, and if So, When?

In a meta-analysis of 126 impact evaluation studies, we find that financial education significantly impacts financial behavior and, to an even larger extent, financial literacy. These results also hold for the subsample of randomized experiments (RCTs). However, intervention impacts are highly heterogeneous: Financial education is less effective for lowincome clients as well as in low and lower-middle ...

Heterogeneity in Price Responsiveness for Residential Space Heating in Germany

Space heating and hot water expenditures make up the majority of household energy demand in Germany, at 83.2%, making them an attractive target for energy policies. Using a panel dataset derived from yearly residential household surveys covering the years 1996 to 2014, we identify the determinants of heating expenditures for German households. We discover significant heterogeneity in expenditures depending ...