Search results

Behavioral economic analysis of health-related behavior is a potentially useful approach to study and control non-communicable diseases. The purpose of this paper is to explore the time preferences of individuals and its impact on obesity in an adult population of Iran.

A structured questionnaire was completed by 792 individuals who were randomly selected from the participants of an ongoing national Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies in IrAN cohort study in West of Iran. The quasi-hyperbolic discounting model was used to estimate the parameters of time preferences and a probit regression model was used to explore the correlation between obesity and time preferences.

There was a statistically significant correlation between obesity and both the long-run patience and present-biased preferences of participants. Individuals with a low level of long-run patience were 10.2 percentage points more likely to be obese compared to individuals with a high level of long-run patience. The probability of being obese increased by 11 percentage points in present-biased individuals compared to future biased individuals.

The long-run patience and time inconsistent preferences were significant determinants of obesity. Considering the time-inconsistent preferences in the development of policies to change obesity-related behavior among adults might increase the success rate of the interventions.

We explore the predictive capacity of short-horizon time preference decisions for long-horizon investment decisions. We use experimental evidence from a sample of Canadian working poor. Each subject made a set of decisions trading off present and future amounts of money. Decisions involved both short and long time horizons, with stakes ranging up to 600 dollars. Short horizon preference decisions do well in predicting the long-horizon investment decisions. These short horizon questions are much less expensive to administer but yield much higher estimated discount rates. We find no evidence that the present-biased preference measures generated from the short-horizon time preference decisions indicate any bias in long-term investment decisions. We also show that individuals are heterogeneous with respect to discount rates generated by short-horizon time preference decisions and long-horizon time preference decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how tailoring financial incentives for healthy behaviors to employees’ goals, values, and aspirations might improve the efficacy of incentives.

The authors integrate insights from self-determination theory (SDT) with principles from behavioral economics in the design of financial incentives by linking how incentives could help meet an employee’s life goals, values, or aspirations.

Tailored financial incentives could be more effective than standard incentives in promoting autonomous motivation necessary to initiate healthy behaviors and sustain them after incentives are removed.

Previous efforts to improve the design of financial incentives have tested different incentive designs that vary the size, schedule, timing, and target of incentives. The strategy for tailoring incentives builds on strong evidence that difficult behavior changes are more successful when integrated with important life goals and values. The authors outline necessary research to examine the effectiveness of this approach among at-risk employees.

Instead of offering simple financial rewards for engaging in healthy behaviors, existing programs could leverage incentives to promote employees’ autonomous motivation for sustained health improvements.

Effective application of these concepts could lead to programs more effective at improving health, potentially at lower cost.

The approach for the first time integrates key insights from SDT, behavioral economics, and tailoring to turn an extrinsic reward for behavior change into an internalized, self-sustaining motivator for long-term engagement in risk-reducing behaviors.

This paper aims to propose models that capture the own effect of price promotions of virtue and vice products on sales and cross effects within the subcategory, between subcategories and between periods. The hypotheses assume that, due to reverse consumption self-control, the demand for vice products is more price-sensitive than demand for virtue products, but the demand for vice products is less price-sensitive between periods than demand for virtue products; furthermore, due to the degree of impulse-buying and to licensing, the demand sensitivity of the products of a subcategory and of those of other subcategories varies according to the type of promoted product (vice or virtue).

The methodology is based on different econometrical models that estimate the total net effect of price promotions of virtue and vice products on sales.

The results show a greater own effect for price promotions of vice products than for virtue products. However, the complementary sales effect between subcategories for virtue products facilitates greater expansion of the subcategory in virtue products than in vice products.

Although price promotions of virtue products (light) and vice products (regular) have proliferated in recent years, researchers have only estimated their own sales effect. Alternatively, the paper contributes by considering own and cross effects.

This chapter conducts a systematic comparison of behavioral economics’s challenges to the standard accounts of economic behaviors within three dimensions: under risk, over time, and regarding other people. A new perspective on two underlying methodological issues, i.e., inter-disciplinarity and the positive/normative distinction, is proposed by following the entanglement thesis of Hilary Putnam, Vivian Walsh, and Amartya Sen. This thesis holds that facts, values, and conventions have inter-dependent meanings in science which can be understood by scrutinizing formal and ordinary language uses. The goal is to provide a broad and self-contained picture of how behavioral economics is changing the mainstream of economics.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the differences between the classical normative investment theory and alternative investment models of agricultural stakeholders’ choices.

Farmers (n=1,024) and agricultural commodity traders (n=509) were asked to rank investment alternatives. Non-linear regressions were integrated into a Monotonic Analysis of Variance algorithm to analyze the investment rankings. The results reveal coefficients for classical constant discounting, hyperbolic discounting and a preference for a sequence model. Two information criteria indicate the models’ goodness of fit and allow a comparison of the investment rankings of different age groups.

Agribusiness stakeholders have preferences for sequences and could be willing to accept lower internal rates of return for monotone-distributed rewards.

The results are useful for state-aided agricultural investment policies and contractual relations within agribusiness.

To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first paper to analyze agricultural stakeholders’ preferences for sequences.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of environmental regulation on green R&D, as well as to characterize the conditions under which the Porter hypothesis, both the weak as well as the strict version, may or may not hold.

The authors use a simple two‐stage model with environmental R&D and endogenously determined abatement costs to address these issues.

In a monopoly framework, the authors identify a channel arising out of the replacement effect that may increase R&D incentives following stricter regulation. It was found that the Porter hypothesis, both the weak as well as the strong version, is likely to hold if the new technology is relatively efficient in production, but not otherwise.

The paper makes a contribution towards the debate on the relationship between environmental regulation and green R&D, in particular the extremely influential Porter hypothesis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between psychopathy and its underlying traits and financial risk and time preferences.

The authors measure risk and time preferences using both the cumulative prospect theory and quasi-hyperbolic time discounting in a sample of business majors. The Psychopathic Personality Inventory – Revised test is then used to measure the global psychopathy and eight primary and two secondary traits of the sample of business majors. The measures of psychopathy are used as explanatory variables to model variation in subjects’ time and risk preferences.

The authors find that the overall score on the continuum of psychopathy is positively related to the linearity of the cumulative prospective utility function. A breakdown of psychopathy into its secondary and primary traits shows a more complex relation. For example, the secondary trait of self-centered impulsivity is statistically significant in models of financial risk preference determinants under the cumulative prospect theory. The authors find that the primary traits of self-centered impulsivity and stress immunity are related to a higher time preference discount rate under quasi-hyperbolic time preferences.

This paper adds to the literature on personality and financial decisions and highlights the importance of psychopathy in finance.

Prior research has determined that consumers are opposed to services offshoring. The purpose of this paper is to determine the likelihood that consumers would choose a domestic vs an offshore service provider if asked to pay more, wait longer, or sacrifice service quality.

The cost, time to wait, and quality of services provided (for two different services: taxes and customer service) were varied to determine respondent likelihood to choose a domestic as opposed to an offshore service provider when asked to pay more, wait longer, or sacrifice the quality of the service in return for access to a domestic service provider. Data were collected via survey research, using an internet panel.

Results of repeated measures analysis indicated that customer loyalty to the domestic service provider significantly decreased as the cost or time to interact with a domestic service provider increased or the quality of service provided by the offshore service provider increased.

The research results signify that while customers, in general, may be opposed to services offshoring, they will “defect” or show less loyalty to the domestic service provider when asked to sacrifice time or money for that access. Respondents were asked to react to each trade-off as individual factors. Future research might combine these factors to determine interrelated tradeoffs.

The research results signify that while customers, in general, may be opposed to services offshoring, they will “defect” or show less loyalty to the domestic service provider when asked to sacrifice time or money for that access.

The paper extends research with regard to consumer reaction to service offshoring and provides insight into the trade-offs consumers might be willing to incur in return for access to domestic service providers. The paper is of value to practitioners and academic researchers.

There are several ways to define words. One is to ascertain the formal definition by looking it up in the dictionary. Another is to identify what it is that you want the word-label to differentiate.