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Product liability refers to the liability of producers, distributors and suppliers for consumers’ property losses or personal injury caused by that product. This paper conducted a survey related to product liability issues in Shenzhen City, and did an in‐depth analysis of current problems. Finally, the paper puts forward corresponding suggestions for improvement of Shenzhen City product liability status.

Understanding farmers’ preferences for crop insurance attributes is crucial in designing better insurance products and guiding government policies but such research is lacking, particularly in developing countries. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study uses a survey featuring a discrete choice experiment and policy simulation.

Overall, crop insurance has positive values to farmers, although preference is heterogeneous based on socioeconomic characteristics and risk position. Policy simulation confirms the roles of liability in strengthening insurance participants’ welfare and premium subsidy in encouraging participation. Introducing one more product into the market can accommodate farmers’ diverse needs and lead to increases in both aggregated social welfare and participation while maintaining the current level of government expense in subsidy – a potential Pareto improvement.

Methodology employed is not the most novel in the choice experiment literature as many of the advances in choice experiment design could not be applied due to the actual condition in rural China and Chinese farmers’ capability in understanding the experiment.

The results indicate that the current single-product market structure using “low liability with high premium subsidies” cannot accommodate the diverse needs among farmers. Providing more varieties of liability-subsidy combinations, e.g. a high liability with low premium subsidy insurance product, can substantially improve participants’ welfare with little impact to the probability of participation.

The authors believe that this is one of the very few studies that that analyze farmers’ preferences and willingness to pay for the attributes of crop insurance products. It also shows how crop insurance product design can build upon farmers’ choices to achieve a potential Pareto improvement in aggregated social welfare in the context of a fast-developing crop insurance market.

Products liability is having a substantial impact upon manufacturing industry. Marketing management is not immune and it is likely that products liability will lead to a major revision in product strategies.Starting from first principles, the monograph leads the reader through liability developments and liability issues as they pertain to death and personal injury. The major part of the monograph is devoted to central propositions that will assist the general manager and the marketing manager to review their present thinking and to provide new insights into this challenging, complex and strategic problem.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

The four sections to this article have distinct but inter‐related objectives. Part I introduces the concepts, problems and tensions central to an understanding of the product liability debate. These issues recur throughout the article. Part II outlines the development of product liability law in Europe and assesses the impact of the European Directive on Product Liability. The “product liability crisis” in the United States is discussed in Part III, which looks at the law's development and proposals for reform. In Part IV the United States and European positions are compared and the case is made out for a global uniform product liability law which recognises the social responsibility of the producer towards those injured by his products.

Introduction In the last decade the problem of product liability has become one of the major concerns affecting industry, consumers and government. Product liability, which relates to the responsibility of a manufacturer to compensate a user who suffers injury from using his product, is not a new concept. King Hammurabi of Babylon instituted these two laws over 4,000 years ago:

Rapid increases in product liability litigation has expanded its importance as an item of concern to all marketers. A recent Conference Board Study reports that two‐thirds of the corporations surveyed have had product liability lawsuits filed against them in the last five years. The number of product liability lawsuits filed in U.S. District and State courts has increased 21 percent from 84,000 in 1979 to an estimated 100,000 in 1985. Costs of product liability cases have increased to the point where legal expenses, excluding jury awards, are expected to reach $28 billion annually by year 1990.

Analyses the possible effects of product liability legislation on marketing activity. Studies the effects on consumer behaviour of such legislation by means of a buying behaviour model. Uses these effects to further analyses the same effects on various components of the manufacturers' marketing mix and strategy. Concludes that, generally, although the declared purpose of product liability legislation is to protect consumers from specific purchasing hazards, it actually rather causes harm and infringes their economic welfare. Reveals, also, that, on the producer's side, market structure will be more unstable.

The scope of this undertaking is to categorize that sector of the environment affecting managerial decision making that makes up the “legal environment.” The term legal environment encompasses the federal and state legislative and regulatory powers, plus the common law or court‐developed law that impacts an organization's domain. I have set out to divide the project into three chapters with each chapter emphasizing a major regulatory impact on corporate direction; some predictable, some unpredictable. Moreover, predictability will be dealt with as to controlling the legal environment. Historically, the legal environment crosses over two of the sectors: the government sector, city, state, federal laws and regulations, the court system, and political processes; the sociocultural sector, affirmative action, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, values, beliefs, etc. Certain regulatory powers were anticipated by the frames of the Constitution in order to maintain a system of prosperity and strength. However, many of our regulatory agencies have come into being at the behest of the very industries that are regulated, such as antitrust. Furthermore, many of the regulatory laws came about due to the negligence of the business community in not self‐regulating and thereby permitting intolerable conditions for the sociocultural sector.

Almost 20 years ago one of the present authors wrote an article entitled “Product liability: a global problem”. The brief paper seeks to provide a summation of what has happened in the meantime.

The article is a brief discussion of the issues: the first section comments on products liability outside Europe and the final part concludes with an overview of what happened in the UK and Europe.

The article finds that the EU Directive's approach to strict liability has become the most common influence on law reform around the globe and that there is still much uncertainty in Europe and the USA as to what the law of product liability actually is.

The paper illustrates how, for the foreseeable future, businesses may continue to be most concerned about product liability exposure in the USA.