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Positive-framed and negative-framed messages were delivered to examine the effect of framing on intertemporal decisions through lab experiments while holding the level of financial literacy constant. The three big questions adopted by Lusardi and Mitchell were utilized to assess the financial literacy of our subjects before they were asked to complete 20 incentivized intertemporal decisions. A small, delayed reward and a slightly bigger one were incorporated into the intertemporal decisions with a delay of 30 days. The ordinary least square (OLS) shows that the negative relationship between financial literacy and discount rates was held when the delayed reward was small. Interestingly, when the delayed reward became slightly bigger, their discount rates were reduced significantly with the negatively framed message. These findings suggest that the negatively framed message can motivate individuals to save for a greater return in the real world. Lastly, subjects with the highest level of financial literacy were not responsive to the magnitude effect, proving that a financial literacy program is essential to strengthen the individual's financial plan and reduce their discount rates in the developing country context.

This article aims to investigate the role of socioeconomic factors and individual time preferences in the demand for fast-food in Russia. An individual discount rate shows the ability of a person to postpone utility from consumption to future periods.

An individual discount rate is measured through a hypothetical money experiment. The database is the special survey of the Levada analytical center conducted in 2017. Multivariate probit model enables the authors to consider the possible endogeneity of individual discount rate and reveal the relationship between socioeconomic factors and frequent fast-food consumption.

Results show that a higher individual discount rate is related to frequent consumption of fast-food. At the same time, there are factors that provoke both a higher individual discount rate and the refusal of frequent consumption of fast-food. Findings advise the prioritization of measures highlighting the short-term benefits of healthy eating and the short-term costs of avoiding it.

To the authors' knowledge, this article is the first one which presents comprehensive investigation of microeconomic factors of fast-food consumption in Russia including individual time preferences of consumers.

Daily COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality rates are still high globally, and masking is considered a reliable method of preventing its infections. Yet, the rate of voluntary compliance with masking remains very low in most parts of the world, especially in developing countries. The authors hypothesize that the decision to wear a mask entails some benefit-cost analysis that involves time discounting. In addition, the authors surmise that feel-good benefits from pro-social behavior and from wearing fashionable masks are substantial.

The study is based on a survey of 900 fishermen and fish traders in Ghana. A simple experiment was designed to elicit individual rates of time preference. In addition, the fishers were asked questions about their political affiliation and knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic, among others. A logit model is used to investigate the determinants of the decision to wear a mask.

The authors found that masking compliance increases in time discounting for fishmongers, suggesting that private benefits from pro-social behavior or feel-good benefits from wearing a mask are very strong. In addition, those who belonged to the ruling political party were more likely to wear a mask. Other factors increasing the likelihood of masking include affiliation with the ruling political party, knowledge of COVID-19 and knowledge of someone who lost his/her job due to COVID-19.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the effect of time discounting on the voluntary compliance of a health safety measure, which could provide a direct utility. In addition, the study explores the effect of political affiliation on voluntary masking behavior.

Background: This study aimed to appraise the monetary value of human life losses associated with COVID-19 in Turkey. To our knowledge, it is the first study in Turkey to value human life losses associated with COVID-19.

Methods: A human capital approach (HCA) model was applied to estimate the total monetary value of the 4,807 human lives lost in Turkey (TMVHL) from COVID-19 by 15 June 2020. The TMVHL equals the sum of monetary values of human lives lost (MVHL) across nine age groups. The MVHL accruing to each age group is the sum of the product of discount factor, years of life lost, net GDP per capita, and the number of COVID-19 deaths in an age group. The HCA model was re-calculated five times assuming discount rates of 3%, 5%, and 10% with a national life expectancy of 78.45 years; and the world highest life expectancy of 87.1 years and global life expectancy of 72 years with 3% discount rate.

Results: The 4807 human life losses from COVID-19 had a TMVHL of Int$1,098,469,122; and a mean of Int$228,514 per human life. Reanalysis with 5% and 10% discount rates, holding national life expectancy constant, reduced the TMVHL by Int$167,248,319 (15.2%) and Int$ 429,887,379 (39%), respectively. Application of the global life expectancy reduced the TMVHL by 36.4%, and use of world highest life expectancy increased TMVHL by 69%. However, the HCA captures only the economic production losses incurred as a result of years of life lost. It ignores non-market contributions to social welfare and the adverse effects of economic activities.

Conclusions: Additional investment is needed to bridge the persisting gaps in international health regulations capacities, universal health coverage, and safely managed water and sanitation services.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between prudence in risk attitudes and patience of time preference of Chinese apple growers regarding off-farm cold storage of production and marketing in non-harvest seasons. The authors also consider the effect of farmer participation in cooperative-like organizations known as Farm Bases (FBs).

The authors use multiple list methods and elicitation strategies to measure Chinese apple farmers' risk attitudes and time preferences. Because these farmers can either sell their apples immediately to supermarkets or intermediaries or place them in storage, the authors assess correlations between their storage decisions and their preferences regarding risk and time. The authors also differentiate risks involving gains and losses and empirically examine individual risk attitudes in different scenarios.

Marketing decisions are moderately associated with risk attitudes but not time preference. Farmers with memberships in local farmer cooperatives are likely to speculate more in cold storage. Thus, risk aversion behavioral and psychological motives affect farmers' decision-making of cold storage and intertemporal marketing activities. However, membership in cooperatives does not always result in improved income and welfare for farmers.

The research confirms that behavioral factors may strongly drive vulnerable smallholder farmers to speculate into storage even under seasonal and uncertain marketing volatility. There is the need to think deeper about the rationale of promoting cooperatives and other agricultural forms, because imposing these without careful consideration can have negative impacts.

Do risk and time preferences affect the decision of farmers to utilize storage facilities? This question is important because it is not clear if and how risk preferences affect the tradeoff between consuming today and saving for tomorrow, especially for farmers in developing countries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the application of sustainable building design and operation within a university setting to determine its economic efficacy and potential for further university investment.

This study incorporated a life cycle cost analysis (LCCA), simple payback period and discounted payback period calculations to determine the return on investment, including a sensitivity analysis when comparing the energy use and financial benefits of the sustainable design of a multi-use facility at Toronto Metropolitan University with buildings of similar size and use-type.

It was found that there is a positive business argument for Canadian Universities to consider the use of sustainable design to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A reasonable payback period and net present value within an institutional context were determined using a life-cycle cost assessment approach.

This study was limited to the measure of only a single location. Certain assumptions regarding energy pricing and interest rates and the related sensitivities were anchored on a single year of time, and the results of this study may be subject to change should those prices or rates become significantly different over time. Considerations for future research include a longitudinal approach combined with a more detailed analysis of the effect of use-type on the variables discussed.

For university administrators, the results of this study may encourage institutions such as universities to approach new building projects through the lens of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

GHG emissions are a well-proven contributor to global climate change, and buildings remain a significant source of GHG emissions in Canada due to their winter heating and summer cooling loads. As a result, sustainable building design on university campuses can mitigate this impact by optimizing and reducing energy consumption.

Research related to the economic evaluation of sustainable building design on university campuses is generally limited, and this study represents the first of its kind in regard to an LCCA of a sustainably designed building on a Canadian University campus.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is one of the key indicators to measure the success or health of an organization. How can an organization assess the organization's customers' lifetime value (LTV) and offer relevant strategies to retain prospective and profitable customers? This study offers an integrated view of different methods for calculating CLVs for both loyalty members and non-membership customers.

This study outlines eleven methods for calculating CLV considering (1) the deterministic aspect of NPV (Net present value) models in both finite and infinite timespans, (2) the geometric pattern and (3) the probabilistic aspect of parameter estimates through simulation modeling along with (4) the migration models for including “the probability that customers will return in the future” as a key input for CLV calculation.

The CLV models are validated in the context of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)in the healthcare industry. The results show that understanding CLV can help the organization develop strategies to retain valuable customers while maintaining profit margins.

The integrated CLV models provide an overview of the mathematical estimation of LTVs depending on the nature of the customers and the business circumstances and can be applied to other business settings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opaque inventory information disclosure strategy for an online retailer who sells two substitutable products to customers in two selling periods.

The authors develop a two-period model where an online retailer sells two substitute products with two inventory composition structures to maximize profits. The authors investigate the optimal inventory disclosure decision from both ex post and ex ante perspectives. Sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the effects that discount rate, transaction cost and the probability of agreeable inventory situation have on the equilibrium disclosure outcome. The authors also consider risk-averse customers and horizontally differentiated products to highlight the robustness of our results.

The authors find that the online retailer will choose the opaque information disclosure when attempting to increase revenue and reduce the mismatch of supply and demand in both ex post and ex ante inventory information conditions. Comparing with ex post disclosure strategies, ex ante opaque disclosure is optimal in a larger price region, and the total revenues gap between opaque disclosure and complete disclosure gradually increase as discount rate, transaction cost or the probability of agreeable inventory situation decreases. Furthermore, strategic customers may tend to be risk neutral when faced with opaque inventory information in a two-period sales setting.

This current paper is the first paper to study the online retailer's inventory information disclosure strategy in two selling periods. Moreover, this paper presents the conditions under which the online retailer should share complete or opaque inventory information with customers to maximize the online retailer's total revenues.

Driven by the anticipated global stagflation, this straightforward yet novel study examines the cost of inflation as a macroeconomic factor by investigating its influence on stock market growth. Thus, this paper aims to examine the impact of inflation on the probability of initial public offering (IPO) withdrawal decision.

The paper employs a large dataset that covers the period January 1995–December 2019 and comprises 33,536 successful or withdrawn IPOs from 22 nations with various legal and cultural systems. This study applies a probit model utilizing version 15 of Stata statistical software.

This study finds that inflation is substantially and positively correlated with the likelihood of IPO withdrawal. Results of this study show that the IPO withdrawal decision increases up to 90% when the inflation rate climbs by 10%. Multiple robustness tests provide consistent findings.

This study's implications are important for researchers, investment banks, underwriters, issuers, regulators and stock exchanges. When processing IPO proposals, investment banks, underwriters and issuers must consider inflation projections to avoid negative effects, as demonstrated by the findings. In addition, regulators and stock exchanges must be aware of the detrimental impact of inflation on competitiveness in attracting new listings.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to present convincing evidence of a major relationship between IPO withdrawal decision and inflation.