scholarly journals Does Organic Wine Taste Better? An Analysis of Experts' Ratings

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magali A. Delmas ◽  
Olivier Gergaud ◽  
Jinghui Lim

AbstractEcolabels are part of a new wave of environmental policy that emphasizes information disclosure as a tool to induce environmentally friendly behavior by both firms and consumers. Little consensus exists as to whether ecocertified products are actually better than their conventional counterparts. This study seeks to understand the link between ecocertification and product quality. We use data from three leading wine-rating publications (the Wine Advocate, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine Spectator) to assess quality for 74,148 wines produced in California between 1998 and 2009. Our results indicate that ecocertification is associated with a statistically significant increase in wine quality rating. Being ecocertified increases the scaled score of the wine by 4.1 points on average. (JEL Classifications: L15, L66, Q13, Q21, Q56)

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hodgson ◽  
Jing Cao

AbstractA test for evaluating wine judge performance is developed. The test is based on the premise that an expert wine judge will award similar scores to an identical wine. The definition of “similar” is parameterized to include varying numbers of adjacent awards on an ordinal scale, from No Award to Gold. For each index of similarity, a probability distribution is developed to determine the likelihood that a judge might pass the test by chance alone. When the test is applied to the results from a major wine competition, few judges pass the test. Of greater interest is that many judges who fail the test have vast professional experience in the wine industry. This leads to us to question the basic premise that experts are able to provide consistent evaluations in wine competitions and, hence, that wine competitions do not provide reliable recommendations of wine quality. (JEL Classifications: C02, C12, D81)


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Ray Gomez

The technical paper discusses the reduction of high leakage current failures of semiconductor IC (integrated circuit) packages by eliminating the ESD (electrostatic discharge) events during assembly process and ensuring the appropriate machine grounding and ESD controls.  It is imperative to reduce or ideally eliminate the leakage current failures of the device to ensure the product quality, especially as the market becomes more challenging and demanding.  After implementation of the corrective and improvement actions, high leakage current occurrence was reduced from baseline of 5784 ppm to 1567 ppm, better than the six sigma goal of 4715 ppm.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Eka Swarnadi Luh ◽  
Ketut Budi Susrusa ◽  
Ida Ayu Listia Dewi

LPDs are non-bank financial institutions that are regulated and approved by the Regional Regulations of the Province of Bali. The management of LPD is fully handed over to the relevant Pakraman village. In line with the rapid development of LPDs, it turns out that on the other hand it shows diverse performance, so that LPDs need to pay attention to the level of product quality and customer interest in the products offered.            The purpose of the study was to determine the comparison of product quality and interest in saving at the Tajun Traditional Village LPD with the Traditional Village of Tegal. The number of samples from Tajun Adat Village LPD was 98 people and the LPD of Tegal Traditional Village was 84 people. The research data were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney Test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the quality of the products of the Adat Village of Tajun LPD and the Traditional Village of Tegal. This difference is indicated by indicators of physical evidence, reliability, responsiveness and empathy. The product quality of Tajun Adat Village's LPD is better than the traditional village of Tegal. There is a significant difference between the interest in saving the traditional village of Tajun LPD and the traditional village of Tegal. The difference is in the indicator of confidence. Interest in Saving Tajun Indigenous Village LPD is higher than the Traditional Village of Tegal.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Corsi ◽  
Orley Ashenfelter

AbstractIn this paper we estimate how a variety of subjective measures of quality taken from the published opinions of several experts on Italian wines (Barolo and Barbaresco) are determined by the weather conditions during the relevant season, in order to assess their reliability. Since these measures of quality are only ordinal, we estimate their determinants using an ordered probit model. The method provides measures of the determinants of vintage quality ratings and suggestions on the reliability of each expert. (JEL Classifications: D12, Q11, Q13)


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 48-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trey Malone ◽  
Jayson L. Lusk

AbstractThis study tests the prevalence of choice overload (CO) in the U.S. beer market. We reveal that even if CO exists, sellers have mechanisms to reduce CO's negative consequences. The article describes the implementation of search cost-reducing private nudges (i.e., product quality scores and prominently listed specials) sellers commonly utilize to minimize CO's negative consequences. Our results suggest that, while CO exists for some buyers, it can be eliminated by market interactions on the part of the seller. (JEL Classifications: C93, D03, Q13)


1982 ◽  
Vol 45 (9) ◽  
pp. 878-883 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. JELEN

This brief overview includes some of the Canadian industrial experience gained recently with UHT processing of milk and other dairy products. Emphasis is placed on the differences between direct and indirect heating systems in terms of process engineering, product quality, consumer acceptance, public health aspects and economy. Documented advantages include less fouling, better heat transfer and less heat damage to the final product for direct systems, and less elaborate requirements for ancillary equipment and lower costs for indirect technology. Market performance data from some of the four industrial Canadian producers of 2% and chocolate milk indicate better than expected consumer acceptance due to product quality and other market-related aspects of the UHT process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 3-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Bekkerman ◽  
Gary W. Brester

AbstractFor many purchases, consumers often possess only limited information about product quality. Thus, observable product characteristics are used to determine expected quality levels when making purchase decisions. We use more than 1 million weekly scanner-level observations from grocery stores across ten U.S. markets between September 2009 and August 2012 to examine how consumers value a wine bottle's closure type (i.e., cork or screw cap). We focus on lower-priced wines—those with sale prices less than $30 per 750 milliliter bottle—to more accurately evaluate decisions of consumers for whom seeking additional information about wine quality is likely more costly than the benefits derived from that information. Using both pooled ordinary least squares and quantile regressions to estimate price premiums for bottles with corks or screw caps, we find that U.S. consumers are willing to pay, on average, approximately 8% more (about $1.00) for a bottle of wine that has a cork closure. In addition, we show that the size of this premium increases as wine prices decline. (JEL Classifications: D81, M31, Q11)


2005 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa

CHIRWA, DANWOOD MZIKENGE, A full loaf is better than half: the constitutional protection of economic, social and cultural rights in Malawi, Journal of African Law, 49, 2 (2005): 207–241The last two decades have seen a new wave of constitution-making in Africa as many countries changed from autocracy to democracy. Malawi followed the trend by adopting a new Constitution in 1994 to mark the end of a 30-year, dictatorial one-party regime. This Constitution breaks with traditional constitutions by recognizing economic, social and cultural rights. However, few of these rights are entrenched in the Bill of Rights as justiciable rights. The rest are enshrined as unenforceable principles of national policy. These provisions and the jurisprudence they have generated thus far are discussed critically. It is argued that while the Malawian Constitution deserves acclaim for recognizing these rights, the model adopted for protecting them fails to give full effect to the notion of the indivisibility of all rights and is not good enough for a poor country, which is also in transition to democracy. Not only was Malawi's choice of this model not preceded by a careful and reasoned examination of the existing models and the local circumstances, it was also made without wide public consultations. The ways, based on the existing constitutional provisions, in which the protection of these rights can be improved are explored.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Cao

AbstractThere has been ongoing interest in studying wine judges' performance in evaluating wines. Most of the studies have reached a similar conclusion: a significant lack of consensus exists in wine quality ratings. However, a few studies, to the author's knowledge, have provided direct quantification of how much consensus (as opposed to randomness) exists in wine ratings. In this paper, a permutation-based mixed model is proposed to quantify randomness versus consensus in wine ratings. Specifically, wine ratings under the condition of randomness are generated with a permutation method, and wine ratings under the condition of consensus can be produced by sorting the ratings for each judge. Then the observed wine ratings are modeled as a mixture of ratings under randomness and ratings under consensus. This study shows that the model can provide excellent model fit, which indicates that wine ratings, indeed, consist of a mixture of randomness and consensus. A direct measure is easily computed to quantify randomness versus consensus in wine ratings. The method is demonstrated with data analysis from a major wine competition and a simulation study. (JEL Classifications: C10, C13, C15)


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