JOURNAL OF CONSUMER POLICY最新文献

Some public health officials discourage smokers from using electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS, or “e-cigarettes”) as a cessation aid because ENDS use is positively correlated with smoking. Such correlation does not imply that the causal treatment effect of ENDS use on cessation from smoking is negative, however, due to selection bias. We estimate the treatment effect of ENDS use on cessation. After showing that ENDS use and smoking are positively correlated in data from Korea, we investigate selection bias and show that a tax increase and the government’s negative pronouncements regarding ENDS shifted ENDS use toward those smokers for whom cessation is less likely. After accounting for unobserved confounding characteristics of individuals with regression models for endogenous treatment effects, we find that the evidence suggests that ENDS promote cessation. The average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) is estimated with parametric and moment-based methods and is found to be in the range of 10.1 to 16.4 percentage points from copula models and 17.0 percentage points from a moment-based estimator. The ATET from the results preferred by formal model selection criteria is 16.2 percentage points. The Korean government’s discouragement of ENDS use by smokers may therefore create a massive lost opportunity to reduce smoking and improve public health.

The achievement of sustainability goals will take a joint effort and content creators could be one of the actors helping with reaching it. Reliable but relatable communication on sustainable lifestyles on social media could reach many consumers and contribute to changing their behaviour patterns. However, the content creators’ activities need to fit within certain parameters for the benefits to outweigh the costs. This article identifies three important parameters that regulation should safeguard: Relatability, reliability, and redress. A key reason why content creators have managed to establish themselves as influencers is that they are relatable. But content creators may not be able to ensure what they tell their followers is reliable. That in turn raises the question of who should be responsible for providing redress in cases of misstatements. Following the critical analysis of the European legal framework, this article considers the need for further adaptations to the current rules or even the adoption of new rules more strictly regulating sustainable activism on social media.

One of the most significant legal acts concerning the sale and management of insurance risk was issued on January 20, 2016, based on Directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 January 2016 on insurance distribution (IDD Directive). The adoption of European IDD principles aims to enhance transparency in the operations of insurance distributors and improve the standards of their business practices. Its protective scope encompasses all individuals and entities involved in the sale of insurance products. The aim of the article is to ascertain the regulatory authorities’ impact on the insurance market, consideration of consumer protection, in light of the changes introduced by the IDD directive. The primary entities under examination, in the mentioned context of consumer protection, are distributors and supervisory authorities. The discussion includes an overview of the scale of the insurance market and its fundamental applications, as well as compliance within the framework of behavioural economics theory. Additionally, the paper addresses the aspect of threats posed to consumers by the analyzed changes in the European insurance distribution market. In this segment, the authors concentrate on the economic and social ramifications of IDD implementation for entities operating within the insurance market. The concluding section outlines the potential for development and the future prospects of financial intermediation concerning IDD utilization.

The European Union lacks comprehensive legislation pertaining to food supplements containing botanical or bioactive substances other than nutrients, resulting in disparate regulatory frameworks among European Member States. Previous studies predominantly focused on the doctrinal analysis of these diverse regulations at both European and national levels, offering limited insights into their practical implementation by governing bodies. This research endeavours to scrutinize administrative practices governing legislation on food supplements featuring botanical or other bioactive constituents, which are subject to varying approaches across Member States. Employing a combination of doctrinal and empirical legal research methodologies, this approach involved a meticulous examination of the regulatory landscape governing food supplements at both EU and Member State levels. Simultaneously, an empirical investigation, conducted through expert interviews, aimed to elucidate whether discrepancies among national legal systems translate into discernible variations in the operational strategies of competent authorities. Additionally, this empirical inquiry shed light on the efficacy of specific EU directives aimed at harmonizing food supplement regulations at the national level. These findings delineate a fragmented regulatory environment for botanical and bioactive food supplements across Member States. Noteworthy disparities were observed not only in national legislative frameworks but also in the enforcement practices of regulatory authorities. Union-level governance efforts in particular by adopting a mutual recognition approach to mitigate fragmentation proved ineffective. Consequently, this research underscores an urgent imperative to expedite the harmonization of regulations governing botanicals and other bioactive substances present in food supplements across the European Union.

The article examines the proliferation of short-term, unsecured credit offered by digital money lenders (DMLs) in Nigeria, with a focus on abusive debt collection practices such as unauthorised disclosure of personal information, the use of threats and the defamation of borrowers, often disregarding existing financial consumer safeguards. To balance the growth of digital lending with recognised consumer safeguards, the study employs a doctrinal research approach to assess consumer protection mechanisms within Nigeria’s legal and institutional framework. The article proposes several recommendations, including promoting consumer awareness, expanding judicial and administrative channels of reporting and redress, improving and publishing regulatory activities, introducing fair digital lending rules, employing Enforcement Technology to facilitate monitoring and redress, fostering industry collaboration in data sharing, expanding the scope of formal entities providing credit, simplifying access to formal credit and strengthening credit reporting. These measures aim to establish a sustainable, inclusive and empowering digital lending environment for all stakeholders.

Financial and digital inclusion are key consumer policy agendas for governments globally. Yet, despite the importance of online interfaces to manage finances and make payments, the link between financial and digital inclusion remains under-researched. This study analyses the link between digital and financial inclusion drawing on data from a survey conducted of 922 adults in UK in 2018. The results suggest that the active use of banking services depends on digital skills. The level of self-rated internet proficiency predicts a variety of ways in which consumers use financial services in the management of their finances, including contactless payments, bank transfers, and the use of multiple banking services. This holds even when controlling for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Conversely, household income is more important as a determinant than digital skills in checking account balance online. This possibly reflects that liquidity constrained consumers generally prefer to monitor their spending using cash as this provides more precise information on their spending and remaining balance.

Food and nutrition are important issues of interest to policy makers, practitioners, and academics around the world due to the far-reaching consequences for society, households and individuals, and guidelines related to food consumption have been included in several policies both nationally and internationally. This study identifies household ‘typologies’ with regard to household food consumption of ‘marker’ food groups, and examines related associations with household demographics, analysing quantitative data on households (n = 4144) from the most recently available Northern Ireland Health Survey (2014/2015). Latent Class Analysis identified five household typologies; ‘Hedonistic Households (19%), Healthier Households (13%), General Households (42%), Unhealthier Households (3%), Balanced Households (23%)’, which individually vary in their adherence to recommended guidelines, and in their demographic composition. The study provides insight into how households’ dietary consumption patterns accord with government recommendations, and findings have implications for policy, for example through informing decision-making related to promoting behavioural change, and informing future collection of data related to ‘marker’ food groups.

On 18 October 2023, the EU adopted the long-awaited New Consumer Credit Directive. This directive will replace the 2008 Consumer Credit Directive which has been criticized for two main reasons. First, the information paradigm of consumer protection reflected in the directive has been widely regarded as incapable of protecting consumers against irresponsible lending. Second, the directive has been viewed unfit for ensuring consumer protection in an increasingly digital marketplace. To remedy the shortcomings of the old directive, the revised directive widens the scope of its application, tailors the existing rules to the consumer needs in the online lending environment, and introduces new, more protective rules. But does this suffice to ensure responsible lending in the digital consumer credit markets? To answer this question, this article critically assesses the key changes introduced by the New Consumer Credit Directive, against the backdrop of the large-scale irresponsible lending practices that have troubled the consumer credit markets across Europe over the last decade or more. It concludes that the revised directive represents a major step forward in combating such practices and protecting European consumers against overindebtedness in the digital marketplace. At the same time, however, the effectiveness of the new directive will depend considerably on its implementation and enforcement in the EU Member States.

This article evaluates the European Union’s efforts to regulate consumer food information with the aim of improving consumer nutrition as part of its broader consumer protection agenda. With nearly a million deaths attributed to unhealthy diets annually, the EU’s New Consumer Agenda, its Farm to Fork Strategy, and Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan all highlight the objective of empowering consumers to make informed, healthy food choices. This underscores the EU’s longstanding emphasis on regulating information to protect consumers, an approach which is even stronger with nutrition more specifically. This article shows that the EU food information law is based on two beliefs. First, consumers are given food information that is sufficient, accurate, non-misleading, clear and easy to understand and they are, therefore, well-informed. Second, well-informed consumers are empowered. This article argues that both of these beliefs are misguided. The current food information rules do not truly inform consumers well and do not, on their own, empower consumers to make healthy dietary decisions. Consequently, this article expresses scepticism about the ability of the current rules to promote improved nutrition. In light of the critiques of the current rules, this article offers suggestions for an improved food information paradigm. In addition to rules that would more effectively inform consumers, such a paradigm would acknowledge the limitations of information to empower healthier food choices and, therefore, give greater weight to more substantive interventions. This would align food law with broader trends in consumer protection law and thereby genuinely promote healthier nutrition.

Product lifetime extension is a major strategy in a circular economy. Circular economy policies encourage the improvement of product designs for longer use. In addition, such improvements increase the product lifetime expected by the consumers, which is called the expected product lifetime. Since physical restrictions on product lifetime extension will be mitigated along with circular economy policies, the practical potential of product lifetime extension through circular economy policies depends on how much can the increase contribute to the product lifetime extension. However, apart from air conditioners, limited analyses have been conducted on the extended effects of the expected product lifetime. This study estimates the effects of the expected product lifetimes of refrigerators and compares them with those of air conditioners. The results show that although the increased expected product lifetime of refrigerators could extend their actual product lifetime, the degree of extension was smaller than air conditioners. These findings indicate that although product design improvements are moderately effective in extending the product lifetime of refrigerators, other measures/policies are required to obtain a degree of product lifetime extension comparable to air conditioners.