This book describes the new generation of discrete choice methods, focusing on the many advances that are made possible by simulation. Researchers use these statistical methods to examine the choices ...that consumers, households, firms, and other agents make. Each of the major models is covered: logit, generalized extreme value, or GEV (including nested and cross-nested logits), probit, and mixed logit, plus a variety of specifications that build on these basics. Simulation-assisted estimation procedures are investigated and compared, including maximum simulated likelihood, method of simulated moments, and method of simulated scores. Procedures for drawing from densities are described, including variance reduction techniques such as anithetics and Halton draws. Recent advances in Bayesian procedures are explored, including the use of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and its variant Gibbs sampling. No other book incorporates all these fields, which have arisen in the past 20 years. The procedures are applicable in many fields, including energy, transportation, environmental studies, health, labor, and marketing.
How toxic are the products we consume on a daily basis? Whether it’s triclosan in toothpaste, formaldehyde in baby shampoo, endocrine disruptors in water bottles, or pesticides on strawberries, ...chemicals in food and personal care products are of increasing concern to consumers. This book chronicles how ordinary people try to avoid exposure to toxics in grocery store aisles using the practice of “precautionary consumption.” Through an innovative analysis of environmental regulation, the advocacy work of environmental health groups, the expansion of the health-food chain Whole Foods Market, and interviews with consumers, Norah MacKendrick ponders why the problem of toxics in the U.S. retail landscape has been left to individual shoppers—and to mothers in particular. She reveals how precautionary consumption, or “green shopping,” is a costly and time-intensive practice, one that is connected to cultural ideas of femininity and good motherhood but is also most available to upper- and middle-class households. Better Safe Than Sorry powerfully argues that precautionary consumption places a heavy and unfair burden of labor on women and does little to advance environmental justice or mitigate risk.
Responsible consumption conventionally stems from an increased awareness of the impact of consumption decisions on the environment, on consumer health, and on society in general. We theorize the ...influence of moralistic governance regimes on consumer subjectivity to make the opposite case: responsible consumption requires the active creation and management of consumers as moral subjects. Building on the sociology of governmentality, we introduce four processes of consumer responsibilization that, together, comprise the P.A.C.T. routine (personalization, authorization, capabilization, and transformation). After that, we draw on a longitudinal analysis of problem-solving initiatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to explore the role of P.A.C.T. in the creation of four, now commonplace, responsible consumer subjects: the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer, the green consumer, the health-conscious consumer, and the financially literate consumer. Our analysis informs extant macro-level theorizations of market and consumption systems. We also contribute to prior accounts of responsibilization, marketplace mythologies, consumer subjectivity, and transformative consumer research.
In the long eighteenth century, new consumer aspirations combined with a new industrious behavior to fundamentally alter the material cultures of northwest Europe and North America. This 'industrious ...revolution' is the context in which the economic acceleration associated with the Industrial Revolution took shape. This study explores the intellectual understanding of the new importance of consumer goods as well as the actual consumer behavior of households of all income levels. De Vries examines how the activation and evolution of consumer demand shaped the course of economic development, situating consumer behavior in the context of the household economy. He considers the changing consumption goals of households from the seventeenth century to the present and analyzes how household decisions have mediated between macro-level economic growth and actual human betterment. Ultimately, de Vries' research reveals the strengths and weaknesses of existing consumer theory, suggesting revisions that add historical realism to economic abstractions.
The First Edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put ′consumer culture′ on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. Updated throughout, this expanded new edition includes a ...fully revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the First Edition. Among the most noteworthy areas discussed are the effect of global warming on consumption, the rise of the new rich, changes in the North/South divide and the new diversity of consumer culture. The result is a book that shakes the boundaries of debate, from one of the foremost writers on culture and postmodernism of the present day.
The tenth edition of Who's Buying by Race and Hispanic Origin is based on unpublished data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2013 Consumer Expenditure Survey, data you can't get online. It ...presents detailed product-by-product household spending statistics for Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic Whites organized into ten chapters: apparel, entertainment, financial products and services, food and alcoholic beverages, gifts for people in other households, health care, household operations, shelter, transportation, and a chapter that looks at personal care, reading, education, and tobacco.
This article provides a synthesizing overview of the past 20 yr. of consumer research addressing the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumption. Our aim is to ...provide a viable disciplinary brand for this research tradition that we call consumer culture theory (CCT). We propose that CCT has fulfilled recurrent calls for developing a distinctive body of theoretical knowledge about consumption and marketplace behaviors. In developing this argument, we redress three enduring misconceptions about the nature and analytic orientation of CCT. We then assess how CCT has contributed to consumer research by illuminating the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle and by developing novel theorizations concerning four thematic domains of research interest.
Democratizing Luxury explores the interplay between advertising
and consumption in modern Japan by investigating how Japanese
companies at key historical moments assigned value, or "luxury," to
...mass-produced products as an important business model. Japanese
name-brand luxury evolved alongside a consumer society emerging in
the late nineteenth century, with iconic companies whose names
became associated with quality and style. At the same time, Western
ideas of modernity merged with earlier artisanal ideals to create
Japanese connotations of luxury for readily accessible products.
Businesses manufactured items at all price points to increase
consumer attainability, while starkly curtailing production for
limited editions to augment desirability. Between the late
nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, control over family
disposable income transformed Japanese middle-class women into an
important market. Growth of purchasing power among women
corresponded with Japanese goods diffusing throughout the empire,
and globally after the Asia-Pacific war (1931-1945). This book
offers case studies that examine affordable luxury consumer items
often advertised to women, including drinks, beauty products,
fashion, and timepieces. Japanese companies have capitalized on
affordable luxury since a flourishing domestic mercantile economy
began in the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), showcasing brand-name
shops, renowned artisans, and mass-produced woodblock prints by
famous artists. In the late nineteenth century, personalized
service expanded within department stores like Mitsukoshi, Shiseidō
cosmetic counters, and designer boutiques. Shiseidō now globally
markets invented traditions of omotenashi, Japanese "values" of
hospitality expressed in purchasing and consuming its products. In
postwar times, when a thriving democracy and middle-class were tied
to greater disposable income and consumerism, companies rebuilt a
growing consumer base among cautious shoppers: democratizing luxury
at reasonable prices and maintaining business patterns of
accessibility, high quality, and exemplary service. Nationalism
amid economic success soon blended with myths of unique Japanese
identity in a mass consumer society, suffused by commodity
fetishism with widely available brand names. As the first
comprehensive history of iconic Japanese name brands and their
unique connotations of luxury and accessibility in modern Japan and
elsewhere, Democratizing Luxury explores company histories and
reveals strategies that lead customers to consume these alluring
commodities.
Since 2016, community group buying has grown significantly in China, largely driven by its efficient logistics, supply chains, low prices, and convenience. This model has been further popularized ...during the COVID-19 pandemic due to its effectiveness in meeting daily needs while minimizing human-to-human contact. A key component of this business model are the “group leaders” - influential individuals within a community responsible for managing group buying activities, which include order collection, supplier liaison, and goods distribution. Their primary task is to form and sustain a reliable community group buying consortium, a task that demands excellent organizational and interpersonal skills. This paper examines this phenomenon using the lens of the differential mode of association, a theoretical model explaining interpersonal relationships in traditional Chinese society. The research indicates that group leaders, through regular interaction with consumers, are able to alter their social network position, increase their influence, understand consumer needs, provide satisfying services, and enhance trust, thereby transforming consumers into loyal group buying participants. This transformation not only brings stability to group buying activities but also reinforces the community influence of group leaders, thus fostering the growth of community group buying.
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