The Journal of Consumer Affairs articles from June 2004

The Journal of Consumer Affairs archives from June 2004

Why don't households have a checking account?
June 22, 2004... Using the Surveys of Consumer Finance from 1989 to 2001, this study explores households' reasons for not having a checking account. Reasons have changed over time, shifting away from account features and toward human capital and institutional...

The economic burden of health care, funeral, and burial expenditures at the end of life.
June 22, 2004... Research suggests that widows and widowers experience substantial economic vulnerability. Using nationally representative data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys 1980-2000, we describe pre-widowhood shifts in medical and funeral/burial...

A profile of financially at-risk college students.
June 22, 2004... Using a random sample of college students, this study identifies the factors that significantly affect the probability a college student is financially at risk for mismanaging/misusing credit. Financially at-risk students are more likely to be...

A new look at husbands' and wives' time allocation.
June 22, 2004... The impacts of economic and non-economic factors on husbands' and wives' market work time and housework time are estimated using 13 years of data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics. Several limitations in earlier studies are addressed,...

The relationship between sociodemographics and concern about food safety issues.
June 22, 2004... This study reviews the relationship between sociodemographic variables and food safety, and assesses how sociodemographic variables relate to three different food hazards in the food chain--pesticides, Salmonella, and fat. Our results revealed...

What consumers don't know can hurt them: consumer evaluations and disease risk perceptions of restaurant menu items.
June 22, 2004... Legislation that mandates the provision of nutrition information on restaurant menus has been proposed in several states. Tins research presents findings from an experiment that investigates how the provision of nutrition information and a...

Seeking a single policy for contractual fairness to consumers: a comparison of U.S. and E.U. efforts.(United States)(European Union)
June 22, 2004... The United States and the European Union both have made substantial progress toward harmonizing contractual unfairness law for consumers within their borders. To a large degree, the policies of these two largest consumer markets in the world...

Targeting financial management training at low-income audiences.(Bits, Briefs, And Applications)
June 22, 2004... While interest in financial management training programs for low-income persons has grown in recent years, the specific training needs of low-income consumers have not been well articulated. This article describes needed training content for...

Consumers' interpretations of the semantic phrases found in reference price advertisements.
June 22, 2004... Consumers are frequently presented with a higher reference price tn compare with a lower advertised selling price. The research on reference prices has traditionally been conducted based on the implicit assumption that consumers'...

The consumer as serf.(Editorial Postlude)(Editorial)
June 22, 2004... A few years ago, frustrated consumer Mark Evanier searched the different Los Angeles grocery stores in vain for a particular brand of orange juice. Stores would carry other products from the same company, but not the orange juice. As he was...