Thin friends who eat a lot could put your waistline in danger. That’s the warning from researchers studying how other people’s weight and food choices influence how much we eat.

Researchers from Duke University, the University of British Columbia and Arizona State University used snack foods, an obesity prosthesis, and the ruse of a study related to movies to track how students’ food consumption was influenced by a companion. Their findings will appear online this week in the Journal of Consumer Research.

“Obesity is obviously a tremendous public health concern,” said Gavan Fitzsimons, F.M. Kirby Research Fellow and professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. “Because people often dine in social settings, we decided to investigate how someone’s size and food choices could influence how much the people around them order and eat.”

The research team recruited 210 college students to participate in a study ostensibly about movie watching. Upon arriving at a research lab, each student was informed that he or she would be paired with another student taking part in the same study. The other student was in fact a member of the research team whose size was manipulated to make her appear to be either size 0 and 105 pounds (her natural build), or size 16 and 180 pounds (when wearing the obesity prosthesis, a rubber suit that made her look much larger).

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The number of U.S. companies with an offshoring strategy has more than doubled from 2005 to 2008 and very few plan to relocate activities back to the United States, according to Duke Offshoring Research Network’s fifth annual report on offshoring trends, published in collaboration with The Conference Board.

Last year, more than 50 percent of companies had a corporate offshoring strategy in place, up from 22 percent in 2005. Sixty percent of companies currently offshoring say they have aggressive plans to expand existing activities.

The report also confirms the globalization of innovation — the major finding of last year’s report — is continuing at an increased rate in all areas of industry. Speed to market and the domestic shortage of science and engineering talent are two key drivers for offshoring projects.
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Courtesy of flickr/Jeff Turner

Just because the unemployment rate dropped from 9.5% to 9.4% does not mean we are out of danger. This is how I think the economy will unfold. The scenario is consistent with what I have been posting for the last six months:

• Many people want to believe the recession is over. Any piece of less bad news is considered good news.
• Yes, we will see perhaps +3% real growth in Q3 and positive growth in Q4. That does not mean the recession is over.
• The pop in growth is largely due to government intervention. The maximum stimulus impact will occur between now and the end of the year.
• Much of this government spending is simply “shifting” consumption expenditures. Cash for clunkers is a great example. People buy a subsidized car right now rather than next year or the year after. While we get some economic action today, it takes away from what would have happened in the future.
• Unemployment will continue its climb (but at a slower rate). We will likely hit 11% early next year. I have referred to this as the major risk the economy faces.
• What is not well understood is that loan defaults are beginning to surge now and will continue for a number of years.
• This surge in defaults (during and after severe recession with high unemployment) will cause a greater than expected impairment in the value of prime mortgages.
• The prime defaults (along with other loan defaults – I pick on prime because it is the largest category) will cause a second wave of trouble for financial institutions.
• Risk aversion increases in the face of new economic uncertainty. Growth falls again. The double dip. Read the rest of this entry »

Professor Rick Larrick has become quite well known as an advocate for the gallons per mile standard of fuel efficiency.   He’s also been following the Cash for Clunkers program very closely, cautioning that the program’s success as an environmental initiative is contingent on its overall reduction of C02 emissions.

Now Larrick has crunched the numbers on the program’s sucess to date, and concludes in a new post on his MPGIllusion blog that the program has been effective in helping the auto industry and in reducing C02 emissions.

Duke behavioral economist Dan Ariely recently hosted virtual office hours, taking questions on topics including bonuses and motivation, health care, the psychology of gift giving, and more.  View the recorded office hours session here: