Credit card behavior,financial styles,and heuristics

The paper makes four contributions. First, the paper provides new data and findings about credit card usage segmentation in respect to spending and borrowing behavior. Second, it sets the new findings against the backdrop of the newly emerging literature on financial literacy. A great variability occurs in financial literacy across American consumers. Third, the paper describes fast and frugal heuristics aimed to help consumers make effective, and in some cases better, budgeting decisions when they use credit cards. Fourth, the paper describes the introduction of a new set of online financial tools, offered by a large credit card company, which consumers are now using to make decisions about their spending and borrowing, and links these tools to the heuristics under discussion. Fast and frugal heuristics are likely to be especially valuable to consumers with low confidence in their online skills. Notably, 25% of credit cardholders report that they have low confidence using online technology to manage their finances, with the corresponding figure being 44% for those most at risk.     

Effects of social demographic attributes,knowledge about credit cards and perceived lifestyle outcomes on credit card usage

The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the effects of credit card users' demographic and socio‐economic characteristics, knowledge about credit cards, and perceived lifestyle outcomes of the credit card usage on credit card usage practices. A sample of 177 individuals in Sri Lanka who possess Visa, MasterCard or American Express credit cards responded to the survey. The hypothesized relationships were examined by means of path analysis. The findings offer implications for research and practice.     

An Actuarial Analysis of Participating Life Insurance

An actuarial model is developed to reveal the intrinsic nature of participating life insurance. The basic safe-side criterion is examined. It is established how the first-order prospective net premium reserve includes safety margins or bonus loadings, and it is demonstrated how the bonus loadings are currently released. It is demonstrated how surplus may be distributed and accumulated as a terminal bonus in an equitable way. The level premium is divided into a variable recurrent single premium and a variable natural premium, and an alternative to the prospective net premium reserve is examined. A capitalization of future safety margins or bonus loadings, which are related to past premiums and the paid-up benefit, may allow the insurance company a considerable increase in investment freedom. The theory is illustrated by numerical results.     

我国开征遗产税问题初探

遗产税是一个国际性的税种，目前经有100多个国家和地区开征此税，随着我国改革开放的不断深入，收入分配格局发生了很大变化，个人收入水平不断提高且收入差距很大，先富起来的一部分人拥有较多甚至是巨额的财产，使我国遗产税的开征不仅可能而且必要。     

Consumer credit card ownership and usage practices: empirical evidence from Sri Lanka

Knowledge that has been accumulated through research efforts concerning credit card ownership and usage behaviour has been confined to Western societies. Given the importance of cross‐national application of consumer marketing concepts and propositions for academic and practical reasons, investigations are needed to test whether consumer credit card usage patterns that are assumed to exist in the West also exist in non‐Western parts of the world, especially in Asia. Therefore, objectives of this research were to explore credit card ownership and usage practices in Sri Lanka, and to explore the relationship between credit card ownership and usage practices, and demographic and socio‐economic characteristics of credit card users. The findings offer implications for researchers and practitioners.     

Are your consumers variety seekers? The moderating impact on the effectiveness of free gift promotions vs. price discounts

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of consumers’ variety-seeking tendency on their preference for monetary versus nonmonetary promotions (i.e. a price discount versus a free gift, respectively) and to identify possible reasons for this preference. A sample population of 150 students was surveyed. The research employed a 2 (discount/free gift)?×?2 (high variety seeking/low variety seeking) between-subjects design. A two-way ANOVA was applied to analyse the effects of the promotion frame and variety seeking on perceived transaction value. The ANOVA revealed a general consumer preference for a free gift over a price discount. This outcome is moderated by the variety-seeking tendency of the consumer; that is, repetitive consumers prefer a price discount, but variety-seeking consumers favour a free gift. This study gives managers insights into the issue of what kind of price promotion is most effective under which circumstances, namely for which type of consumer segment. The practical implications of our findings recommend that if the targeted consumer segment is variety-seeking, a free gift may be optimal, yet if the target segment represents returning customers, a price discount yields better results. If no clear assignment of consumers to either segment is possible, a free gift is the preferred option.     

An Experimental Study of Influences of Performance-Related Payments on Timing of Delegated Stock Purchases

Performance-related bonuses are important tools for investment organizations to incentivize stock traders. Yet, two experiments indicate that bonuses rewarding short-term performance may lead to worse timing of purchases. The authors propose that hyperbolic time discounting makes participants set lower aspired purchase prices for short-term (decreasing percentage) bonuses than for long-term (increasing percentage) bonuses. For this reason purchases are made earlier for decreasing than increasing percentage bonuses, earlier for decreasing than random prices, and earlier for high price volatility than for low price volatility. Neither purchases at the lowest price or highest bonus are attained. Hyperbolic time discounting may account for bubbles observed in experimental double-auction markets.     

Industrial Democracy: Toward an Analytical Framework

The credit card market has evolved into what is defined here as a "peacock market." Analogous to extravagant and inefficient male peacock displays, a "peacock market" has developed to become dominated by elaborate signals that are no longer connected in a meaningful way to price, quality, or efficiency.

The focus of this analysis is on how the institutional framework of the credit card market has evolved. It is concluded that while recent and proposed regulations are beneficial, a peacock market-based strategy is already embedded in current institutional thinking and will be very difficult to reverse.     

Does local social capital deter labour migration? Evidence from rural China

This article empirically investigates the effect of local social capital on job-related migration in rural China. A household’s social ties in the region of origin, which we refer to as local social capital, may deter migration, because local social capital is location specific and an individual cannot benefit from it if s/he migrates. In view of Chinese gift-giving culture, we use household expenses on wedding gifts for family members outside household, relatives and friends as a proxy for local social networks. Based on the data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that in rural China local social networks have a significantly negative effect on migration. The IV results suggest that a 10% increase in wedding gifts expenses results in roughly a 1.1 percentage points decrease in migration probability.     

中国高技术产业存在“结构红利假说”吗？

描述了中国高技术产业劳动力和资本要素结构、要素生产率及其演进情况,利用偏离-份额分析方法解构要素生产率增长,分别检验了生产要素跨行业、跨省区和跨所有制流动对生产率增长带来的结构性贡献。研究发现,劳动力和资本跨行业流动均产生了“结构红利”;劳动力和资本跨省区流动均产生了“结构负利”;劳动力跨所有制流动产生了微弱的“结构红利”,资本跨所有制流动产生了“结构负利”。“结构负利”的产生具有如下启示：合理减少行政干预,释放高技术产业生产要素流动活力,破除高技术产业融资的地域与所有制歧视,逐步建立统一的高技术产业劳动力市场。