The Journal of Consumer Affairs articles from December 1998

The Journal of Consumer Affairs archives from December 1998

Geographic variation in consumer prices: implications for local price indices.(includes appendix)
December 22, 1998... There is substantial variation in local prices among states. Research findings have shown as much as a 35 percent difference between price indices for states (McMahon 1991). Yet, these price differences are often not used in comparing the...

Enhancing consumer choice: are we making appropriate recommendations?
December 22, 1998... In a society filled with complex consumer choices, many groups provide aids to facilitate the consumer choice-making process. These aids typically reduce the costs associated with information acquisition and use, and are based on a particular...

Are apparel trade restrictions regressive?
December 22, 1998... Since the Multi-Fiber Arrangement in 1974, the textile and apparel industry has received more comprehensive and persistent protection than any other industrial sector (Cline 1990). According to Hufbauer and Elliott (1994), tariffs and...

Consumer decision-making styles of young-adult Chinese.
December 22, 1998... With China's rapid economic growth, more consumer products are becoming available, many of which are new and technologically complicated. The changing market structure of the transitional economy in China makes it very difficult for consumers...

Compulsive buying among college students: an investigation of its antecedents, consequences, and implications for public policy.
December 22, 1998... Compulsive buying has been described as "chronic, repetitive purchasing that becomes a primary response to negative events or feelings" (O'Guinn and Faber 1989, 155). Most of the research on compulsive buying has addressed this behavior in the...

The process of becoming homeless: an investigation of female-headed families living in poverty.
December 22, 1998... Homelessness is regarded as one of the most urgent and complex domestic problems in the United States, generating extensive media coverage, congressional debate, and social scientific research. As Snow and Bradford note, this level of interest...

The effects of activity and aging on rural community living and consuming.
December 22, 1998... The senior citizen or elderly market is traditionally defined as consumers age 65 years and older (Lambert 1979; Tongren 1988). Forecasts concerning the next century predict the number of Americans entering this particular market segment will...

Household debt quintiles: explaining changes 1983-1989.
December 22, 1998... The aggregate indebtedness of U.S. households grew substantially in the decade of the 1980s (Canner and Luckett 1991). Some of the aggregate increase can be explained by inflation, increased employment, and rising real incomes of high income...

The dangers of educational and cultural populism: three vignettes on the problems of aesthetic insensitivity, the pitfalls of pandering, and the virtues of artistic integrity.
December 22, 1998... Not the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. . . . To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. . . . Not to discriminate . . is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep...