Non-monetary Costs Research Articles

Routine activities and consumer fraud victimization: findings from a social survey in Chiba Prefecture, Japan

AbstractRecently, Japan has been grappling with various forms of consumer fraud. Consumer fraud victimization causes not only monetary losses but also nonmonetary costs such as emotional stress and psychological trauma. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the factors associated with the risk of consumer fraud victimization in order to identify vulnerable groups and implement suitable prevention measures. Consequently, this study aims to analyze the sociodemographic and routine activity factors associated with consumer fraud victimization risk in Japan. Drawing on data from a social survey of residents in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, this study employs a series of logistic regression models. This study demonstrates that while using social networking services is unrelated to respondents’ likelihood of experiencing consumer fraud victimization, the frequency of contacting individuals whom respondents have only met online was statistically linked to increased consumer fraud risk. Additionally, only 10.7 to 31.9% of respondents were aware of the available support services for victims of consumer fraud and related issues. This study proposes that social networking providers could aid in preventing consumer fraud by displaying warning messages when users send messages, alerting them to possible threats.

Childbearing under different family policy schemes

Objective: This study assesses whether and how changes in family policies are associated with first and second births in Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom, and whether these associations differ by women’s education. Background: Family policies are expected to impact the direct and indirect costs of childbearing by providing resources that influence the monetary and non-monetary costs of having children. The countries analysed here have undergone substantial changes in family policy throughout the two decades analysed, but each country has changed different aspects of their policies, and they have done so in different policy environments. Method: We analysed women aged 18–44 and their transitions to first and second births using register data from Finland (N = 57,518 / 21,685) and panel data from Germany (G-SOEP, N=37,716 / 16,756) and the UK (BHPS and Understanding Society, N = 13,213 / 9,992) complemented with annual family policy information. The data were analysed using logistic regression models and interactions, and the results are presented as average marginal effects. Results: The results suggest that the association between changes in family policies and transitions to first and second child birth varied by birth parity, women’s education level, and between countries. For example in Finland, increases in paternity leave length were associated with greater propensities to transition to first birth for highly educated women, whereas increases in child allowances had a similar association for lower educated women. In Germany, reductions in maternity leave length were associated with increased transitions to first birth for higher educated women. In the UK, increases in maternity leave length were associated with greater transitions to first births among all women. Conclusion: The results highlight that to the extent that family policies influence fertility, they do so depending on both the country context and often differentially within countries based on women’s education level and birth parity.

Investigating the complexity of naloxone distribution: Which policies matter for pharmacies and potential recipients

Despite efforts to expand naloxone access, opioid-related overdoses remain a significant contributor to mortality. We study state efforts to expand naloxone distribution through pharmacies by reducing the non-monetary costs to prescribers, dispensers, and/or potential recipients of naloxone. We find that laws that only address liability costs have small and insignificant effects on the volume of naloxone dispensed through pharmacies. In contrast, we estimate large effects of laws removing the need for patients to obtain prescriptions from traditional prescribers (e.g., primary care physicians): laws authorizing non-patient-specific prescription distribution and laws granting pharmacists prescriptive authority. We test whether areas designated as primary care shortage areas—where it would be costlier to obtain a prescription—were disproportionately impacted. Shortage areas experienced sharper growth in pharmacy naloxone dispensing in states adopting prescriptive authority policies. These gains were primarily due to those facing low out-of-pocket costs, suggesting that price barriers also must be addressed to increase naloxone purchases.

A STUDY OF THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SWITCHING COSTS AND CONSUMERS RESISTANCE TO SWITCHING BRAND LOYALTY IN INDIAN MOBILE MARKET

To keep customers loyal to their brand is the main problem for companies in the mobile telecommunications market today. This research examines how and why consumers resist switching from one brand to another when they want to maintain loyalty, but there are many drawbacks associated with this. Interviews will be scheduled for qualitative data while quantitative data will also be collected through surveys so as to establish what makes consumer loyalty tick by understanding the impact of monetary and non-monetary switching costs on brand-switching behaviour across various industries including Indian’s Mobile Market. The researchers discover that although some customers might switch brands due to costs related to contract termination, handset subsidy, among others; however non-monetary switching expenses such as inconvenience and perceived risk tend to play an equal role in influencing customers’ willingness to shift. Additionally, it provides insights on how switching costs interact with consumer resistance towards changing brands, thereby highlighting intricate dynamics at work. Therefore, it is a significant study that contributes both theoretical knowledge and practical aspects of enhancing brand loyalty and reducing customer churn in a highly competitive Indian telecom industry. As a result, marketing managers can use the knowledge about interaction between consumer behaviour and switching costs as an input into their decisions making process. KEYWORDS: Switching Costs, Brand loyalty, Consumer resistance, Mobile marketing, Indian marketing, Customer Behaviour, Competitive advantage, Marketing strategy.

Heavy is the crown: CEOs’ social interactions and layoff decisions

Abstract We develop a theory of non-monetary costs incurred by chief executive officers (CEOs) when deciding about layoffs and test its predictions on French data. Our results support the idea that, being embedded in their social environment, CEOs find it more difficult to fire employees closer to their own workplace. This effect is stronger whenever social interactions are less anonymous in the CEOs’ local environment. It is weaker when CEOs live further away from where they work, because of limited exposure to local discontent.

Tourists' urban travel modes: Choices for enhanced transport and environmental sustainability

This research investigates tourists’ urban travel mode choices in prominent Chinese tourist cities using latent class nested logit modelling. It identifies Comfort-Driven and Economy-Driven market segments, each exhibiting unique preferences towards transport-related factors as measured by elasticity and willingness-to-pay. Travel cost, walking time, waiting time, transfer time, crowdedness, and parking difficulty significantly affect tourists’ urban travel mode choices. Interestingly, car ownership and environmental consciousness have also been proven significant for both segments, while in-vehicle time is only significant for Comfort-Driven segment. The Comfort-Driven segment shows higher willingness-to-pay for reduced walking and transfer times, and prioritising comfort. Conversely, the Economy-Driven segment is more price-sensitive, focusing on value-for-money options that minimise both monetary and non-monetary costs. This study enhances the theoretical understanding of tourists’ transport service consumption and offers practical guidance with tailored strategies for encouraging low-carbon public transportation, hence it could facilitate the alignment of transport, tourism, and environmental sustainability goals.

Impact of monetary and non-monetary benefits and costs information on youth's preference for labor emigration in Nepal: A vignette experiment

What factors affect the youth's preference for labor emigration is one crucial question that needs to be answered in a remittance-dominated economy like Nepal. To address this question, how do five types of information, i.e., (i) monetary benefits, (ii) non-monetary benefits, (iii) monetary costs, (iv) non-monetary costs, and (v) employment tenure, affect preference for emigration was evaluated employing a vignette experiment with 1549 randomly selected high-school students in Kathmandu, Nepal. The information on monetary and non-monetary benefits increases the preference for labor emigration. In contrast, the information on non-monetary costs decreases the preference for labor emigration, while it is insensitive to the information on monetary costs. Lastly, the length of employment tenure does not significantly impact the preference for labor emigration. In addition, the subsample analyses reveal some clear evidence of heterogeneous effects of information across respondents' characteristics, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity.

Exploring resource implications and models of care for assessment and diagnosis of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: A scoping review.

Previous reviews have examined annual mean costs of care for individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), costs of the health burden, costs to the justice system, productivity losses for caregivers, and both the monetary and nonmonetary costs of reduced quality of life. However, because there have been no published reviews focused on understanding the resource implications and specific service features for the assessment and diagnostic process for FASD, the current scoping review investigated the available evidence on these topics. Eligible studies were identified through a systematic search of six databases and included if they contained information on the potential costs or models of care associated with undertaking an assessment for FASD. Data were charted, underwent content analysis, and were reported according to the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. Eleven studies were included in the final qualitative synthesis. The primary patient costs were attributed to the lengthy time required for diagnosis (up to 47 h). The primary service costs were attributed to costs of clinicians and support personnel and the involvement of multidisciplinary teams in the assessment process. Estimates of the specific dollar values of diagnostic costs were limited and varied between studies. Several models of care were explored, primarily in Canadian clinics, which aimed to capitalize on available services to improve accessibility and patient care and reduce service costs. This study provides important preliminary insights into the resource implications and models of care involved in the diagnostic assessment of FASD. However, the low number of available studies and variability in available data highlight the need for formal costing studies and detailed information gathering on available models of care to inform future clinical practice and policy development.

A Strategic Decision Support System Using Multiplayer Non-Cooperative Games for Resource Allocation After Natural Disasters

A severe natural disaster causes concurrent emergencies in separate geographical locations. However, tackling all the emergencies simultaneously with the limited available resources is challenging. A novel single-stage, non-cooperative multiplayer game-based solution approach for resource allocation is proposed in this paper, where the crisis locations in the demand of resources are treated as the players. The game-based decision support system (DSS) is intended to be implemented by the concerned disaster management authority to obtain a practical strategy for the allocation of indivisible and divisible resources among individual players in a limited resource environment. Any feasible allocation is associated with some cost on the basis of a non-monetary cost function. A discrete strategic game is formulated to tackle indivisible resource allocation and a continuous-kernel game for divisible resources. A mathematical analysis establishes that the game with the proposed cost function possesses at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium (PSNE) for both types of games. Based on different selection criteria, a particular PSNE is chosen from the collection of multiple PSNEs and used as a desirable resource allocation strategy. A complexity analysis of the proposed algorithm is also carried out. Case studies are given in this paper to demonstrate the results developed. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —The cost function proposed in this paper to formulate the non-cooperative game-based DSS will be useful to disaster management authorities in resource allocation problems after any natural disaster. While distributing a limited quantity of essential resources, the cost function maintains an overall balance so that none of the disaster locations is deprived or favoured unreasonably. The feasible allocations of the existing resources are determined by the solutions of a multiplayer game. The case study indicates that the disaster management authority can choose different post-disaster ground truths to compute the possible resource demands of the disaster locations. Using the demand vector (a vector comprising the demands of the players as elements) and the number of available resources as the inputs, the game-theoretic model generates the allocation vector, according to which the disaster locations can be allocated resources.

Consumer value of virtual music festivals

AbstractVirtual music festivals (VMFs) are a great opportunity for the music industry to improve high quality digital events; as an alternative consumption phenomenon, VMFs can reach hybrid audiences and help in the challenge of digitalization. This study aims to investigate the multidimensional structure of consumer value in VMFs (intra‐variable perspective), as well as the effects of value on cognitive versus affective satisfaction and loyalty (inter‐variable perspective). Using a qualitative–quantitative approach—focus group and survey with festival attendees (n = 246)—, a value structure of VMF is tested with partial least square–SEM as a reflective‐formative‐formative third‐order model. Benefits and sacrifices are second‐order constructs, while five positives (escape, novelty, enjoyment, musical content, and socialization) and two negatives (monetary and nonmonetary costs) are first‐order ones. Results show VMFs value as a multidimensional trade‐off, where socialization is not contributing to value, but a balance between cognitive (musical content) and affective (enjoyment, and less escape and novelty) exists. Furthermore, consumer value intensifies both cognitive and affective satisfaction, but just the former affects loyalty. These findings provide new insights to better understand the decision‐making processes of virtual festival attendees.

Factors underpinning Iranian farmers’ intention to conserve biodiversity at the farm level

The depletion of biodiversity is a major environmental challenge of the present time, with the agricultural sector being a significant contributor to the loss. Therefore, farmers' decisions and practices are pivotal in safeguarding biodiversity at the farm level. Accordingly, this study aimed to unravel the key factors influencing farmers' intention to conserve biodiversity (ICB), and in doing so, it adopted the protection motivation theory (PMT) as the theoretical framework. The study's statistical population comprised 412 farmers residing in Bavi County in the southwestern region of Iran. The research employed a questionnaire as the data collection instrument, and the research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings indicated that the respondents held a perception of high costs associated with implementing biodiversity conservation behaviors. They believed that such measures would not be easy to implement, and they would incur both monetary and non-monetary costs. Furthermore, the findings of the study revealed that the variables of SE and ICB among the studied farmers were lower than the theoretical median of 3, indicating that farmers may not have a strong desire and self-efficacy to engage in biodiversity conservation practices. Through the application of SEM, the study determined that the PMT accounts for 65.2% of farmers’ ICB. Additionally, perceived severity and self-efficacy were found to have the strongest effects on farmers’ ICB (as the first and second determinants), highlighting the importance of these variables in predicting farmers’ conservation behaviors. Overall, it can be concluded that these results have significant implications for policymakers in the agricultural sector, providing valuable insights into how to promote biodiversity conservation practices among farmers.

Efektivitas Dan Efisiensi Pembiayaan Pendidikan Pasca Covid-19

During the Covid-19 transition period, there were many transitions that had to be made again, one of which was regarding education financing which is a crucial matter within the scope of developing educational institutions/schools. It is undeniable that from the existing reality there are always problems and obstacles regarding financing education during and after Covid 19, causing educational institutions to prioritize budgets to facilitate the running of the educational environment, especially during the Covid period there were still schools that were not maximal in financing as a result learning uncertainty. This study aims to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of educational financing carried out during the post-covid-19 period so that educational institutions can allocate educational funds as best as possible without burdening students and parents. The method used is the method of literature study. With a philosophical inquiry approach. The results of the research show that, in order to achieve good financing, schools need to understand financial management by looking at the effectiveness and efficiency that is carried out. That way schools don't need to squander a lot of the budget they do. Educational institutions must really understand the effectiveness of financing, by understanding education financing both macro (national) and micro (school) arrangements, as well as several types of educational costs such as direct costs, indirect costs, personal costs. (private costs) social costs (social costs), costs in the form of money (monetary costs) and costs that are not in the form of money (non-monetary costs). The results of managing education costs so that they become effective and efficient management can be seen from internal efficiency which must produce the desired output at maximum cost and external efficiency. This can be seen from the ratio between financial benefits as a result of Education with all costs incurred for the education process.

Are Small Firms Labor Constrained? Experimental Evidence from Ghana

We report the results of a field experiment that randomly placed unemployed young people as apprentices with small firms in Ghana and included no cash subsidy to firms (or workers) beyond in-kind recruitment services. Treated firms experienced increases in firm size of approximately half a worker and firm profits of approximately 10 percent for each apprentice placement offered, documenting frictions to novice hiring. We interpret the program as providing a novel worker screening technology to firms, as (voluntary) worker participation included nonmonetary application costs, echoing the widespread use of an entrance fee mechanism for hiring apprentices in the existing labor market. (JEL D22, J13, J23, L25, M51, M53, O14)

Making scarcity “enough”: The hidden household costs of adapting to water scarcity in Mexico City

In the face of water scarcity due to climate change and population growth, cities around the world, especially in the Global South, increasingly provide intermittent, rather than continuous, water supply. Because an intermittent water supply has negative effects on infrastructure and water quality, literature often recommends transition to continuous supply, but that transition may be unfeasible or cost-prohibitive for many cities. There are few policy recommendations for ensuring safe and equitable urban water accesswithinwater-scarce systems. By understanding how households bear the monetary and non-monetary costs of intermittency, we can make urban water safer, more sustainable, and more equitable. This study combines results from open-ended household interviews and ethnographic observations about water management (n = 59 households) with a large-N survey (n = 2,595 individuals) to understand how households experienced water scarcity in Mexico City. We found most residents reported satisfaction with the quantity of intermittent water supply but incurred monetary and non-monetary costs to achieve that satisfaction. We document the ways householdsadapted to scarcity, transforming the intermittent supply they received from the grid by storing, reusing, and conserving water. These adaptations “made scarcity enough,” allowing families to store and preserve sufficient water to meet their needs for waterquantity. However, these same adaptations simultaneously burdened households with financial costs, such as expenditures for storage, pumps, and alternative water sources, and non-monetary costs, such as time-intensive labor spent managing water and noticeable deterioration in drinking waterquality. Because the scarce public water supply is distributed unequally throughout the city, the financial, labor, and water quality impacts of adapting to scarcity were borne privately, primarily by marginalized households. Our findings about intermittency have implications for water justice and equity. We conclude with policy solutions that address the deterioration of water quality during household storage and the inequalities of intermittency.

The moderating role of perceived trust and perceived value on online shopping behavioral intention of Palestinian millennials during COVID-19

PurposeThe paper aims to examine the moderating role of both the perceived value and perceived trust in the relationship between the ease of use, perceived risk, perceived usefulness and quality of website and the Palestinian millennials’ behavioral intention toward online shopping.Design/methodology/approachA survey questionnaire was carried out targeting 357 Palestinian millennials. In total, 311 valid responses were processed and analyzed using PLS-SEM model fitting approach.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that the impact of ease of use, perceived usefulness and website quality on online shopping behavioral intention are reinforced by perceived value and perceived trust, while the effect of perceived risk is weakened. This implies that improving convenience and lowering non-monetary costs such as time and effort will enhance the customers’ perceived value and, as a result, their shopping behavioral intention. In addition, one of the most significant barriers to online shopping is a lack of trust. Therefore, once trust is established, shopping willingness rises, and vice versa.Research limitations/implicationsAs this study focused on consumers from a developing country, it neglected the cross-cultural issue; thus, future studies may have to make a comparison of other samples from various nations to gain a deeper understanding. Furthermore, this research focused on the ease of use, perceived risk, perceived usefulness and perceived quality of the website to predict the customer’s behavioral intention toward online shopping, which shows significant results, indicating that more research is needed to look at these independent variables as predictors of customers purchasing decision.Practical implicationsOnline shopping is a critical topic that has significant impact on the business world. Investigating the moderating role of perceived trust and perceived value on Palestinian millennials’ online shopping behavioral intention during COVID-19 might give useful information for organizations developing policies and strategies to create direct sales using social media platforms. Furthermore, the findings might also be valuable for management studies and academics to better understand consumers’ intentions when it comes to commercial internet buying.Originality/valueThe empirical nature of this paper gives a thorough explanation of the phenomena of online shopping from a developing country. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that examines the moderating effect of perceived trust and perceived value on Palestinian millennials’ online shopping behavioral intention during COVID-19.

ПОВЫШЕНИЕ ЭКОЛОГИЧНОСТИ ГРУЗОВОГО ТРАНСПОРТА НА ОСНОВЕ УЧЕТА КОНФЛИКТОВ ИНТЕРЕСОВ ЗАИНТЕРЕСОВАННЫХ СТОРОН

The purpose of this study is to determine the current sustainability level of freight traffic in Russia and, in particular, in the Republic of Karelia and the emerging conflicts of interest in transport sector “greening”. This work is based on the data of statistical agencies, examinations of various types of freight transport and the results of approbation of transport models of previously conducted studies. There were used the methods of descriptive statistics, regulatory and content analysis of legislative and strategic documents, the case study method and cartographical method. In the course of work, there were determined the prevalence of various types of freight traffic, their impact on the environment and the monetary and non-monetary costs associated with them. It has been carried out a comprehensive assessment of the directions for improving the environmental characteristics of freight transport and their impact on changes in economic and consumer indicators. It is shown that for now there is no understanding on the market which of the directions of “greening” is advanced. The scientific novelty was the establishment that the improvement of the environmental characteristics of freight traffic leads to the transformation of their consumer value and the emergence of conflicts of economic, environmental, and in a number of territories, social interest, and this significantly limits the transition of companies to building sustainable supply chains. To the greatest extent the improvement of consumer qualities occurs with the railway transport “greening”, in respect of other types there are reduced the limits of use in time and range. The potential of transportation accelerating by water transport without compromising its environmental performance is significantly limited. The developed recommendations for improving the sustainability of freight transport and the shown need to take into account conflicts of interest of actors to ensure the environmental, economic and social security of territories are of practical value. This article is prepared as a part of the state assignment by the Karelian Research Centre of RAS «Comprehensive Research and Development of the Fundamentals of Sustainable Development Management of the Northern and Border Zones of Russia in Global Challenges».

Municipal governance and energy retrofitting of owner-occupied homes in the Netherlands

The building sector is responsible for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Netherlands has set an ambitious target to reduce GHG emissions by 95% by 2050 compared to the 1990 baseline. Several factors, such as low retrofitting rates, lead to uncertainties in achieving these targets. In the residential sector, the energy retrofit rate of the owner-occupied homes is low. Homeowners encounter different types of barriers when deciding to make energy retrofits. The purpose of this study is to explore the policy implications of the main identified influencing factors and consequently the potential mismatch between current policy and the homeowners’ actual needs. We used semi-structured interviews and focus group meetings with experts from the largest cities in the Netherlands as the data collection methods. We identified the discrepancy between current policy and the actual needs of homeowners as follows: (a) less attention to the right message and the right messenger: policymakers cannot motivate the households using the word sustainability. Policymakers can convince homeowners to make energy retrofits through the improvement in quality of life, the expected cost savings, and the integration of energy retrofits into the maintenance of the home (message effect). Moreover, the trustworthiness and familiarity of the energy ambassador with the households are the main characteristics of these ambassadors (messenger effect). (b) the lack of integrated financial, informational and technical support: the main identified transaction cost barriers (non-monetary costs) are difficulties to inspire homeowners to carry out energy retrofits, lack of knowledge on how to start the energy retrofits, many steps in carrying out energy retrofits of old houses. More importantly, there is a lack of an active and accessible party in the market to reduce the financial, technical and informational barriers.

The costs and benefits of certification for community forests managed by traditional peoples in south-eastern Tanzania

Community forests managed by indigenous, traditional, and local communities must be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable for their benefits to persist. Certification of community forests communicates that products harvested there meet these standards. However, certification of community forests has been limited, particularly in Africa. Financial analysis, review of audit reports, and a survey of forest managers were used to explore monetary and non-monetary social costs and benefits of Forest Stewardship Council certification for 14 timberproducing community forests managed by traditional peoples in south-eastern Tanzania. Direct monetary costs of certification outweighed monetary benefits, threatening economic sustainability. Nevertheless, forest managers believed that community forests should retain certification because they valued its non-monetary benefits, which were consistent with the Forest Stewardship Council's social principles. This study demonstrates that certification of community forests can help indigenous and traditional peoples ensure safe working conditions, strengthen forest tenure rights, sustain multiple community benefits, and protect culturally-important sites, however, financial barriers persist.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Policies for Inclusive Development in Africa

While there is increasing academic analysis and policy concern regarding growing inequality and the need for more inclusive development trajectories, it is equally important to advance our understanding of the pathways to attain more inclusive development in practice. This paper serves as the introduction to a special issue examining the empirical outcomes and processes of inclusive development policies in selected countries in Africa. The paper presents a policy implementation and assessment framework as a lens that connects the different case studies. The framework links general inclusive development strategies in employment, social protection and governance, to the participation and representation of the various stakeholders as well as the monetary and non-monetary transaction costs in accessing and/or implementing these programmes on the ground in different national and sub-national contexts. Based on the findings of the 9 case studies, the paper also advances policy directions and operational frameworks to attain more inclusive development in practice.

Three-player game-theoretic allocation of indivisible resources during natural disasters

Resource allocation is an integral part of disaster management. After a natural disaster, multiple concurrent emergencies in distinct locations often make resource allocation challenging for the disaster management authority. This article focuses on disaster resource allocation based on a novel three-player, non-cooperative, single-stage, strategic game where the emergency locations are considered as the players. The decision-making authority solves a game-theoretic algorithm to determine a suitable strategy for allocating indivisible resources among three disaster locations where the available resources are insufficient to satisfy all the players simultaneously. Based on a unique non-monetary cost function, each player incurs a penalty for any possible allocation strategy. Mathematical analysis shows that, for the proposed game, at least one pure strategy Nash equilibrium (PSNE) always exists, which can be a desirable allocation to the players. Payoff dominance and utopia-point-based solutions are used to select a single PSNE from a set of multiple PSNEs.