Financial decision‑making behaviors of Ethnic Tibetan Households based on mental accounting

Ethnic Tibetans(ETs)typically reside in the remote plateaus of China and possess strong cultural and spiritual values.Their financial decision-making is influenced by economic and physical factors,unique culture,social norms,and psychological motivators.We conducted an in-person survey of 480 randomly selected ET households across four provinces in rural China.The survey data was analyzed using three different econometric models—probit,ordered probit,and ranked ordered logit—to examine the choice of borrowing from formal or informal credit sources,the number of sources borrowed from,and repayment priority.Our findings indicate that mental accounting plays a significant role in the financial decision-making process of ET households.Additionally,we find that the informal credit source is strongly associated with the financial decisions of ET households.The majority of loans from formal financial institutions are used to meet daily needs,as opposed to purchasing productive inputs.Our results also suggest that strong social relationships and religious beliefs prevent households from defaulting,and that loans from formal financial sources receive repayment priority.China would benefit from promoting inclusive finance and encouraging the adoption of improved agricultural practices to support the prosperity of ET and other minority communities.

Mental accounting and consumption of self-produced food

This is an exploratory study on mental accounting and food budgeting of agricultural households,in which we assumed that agricultural households may have a mental account for consumption of their self-produced food.Accordingly,they may reserve a certain quantity of self-produced food as a set budget for own consumption,implying that they may keep on consuming their own produce until they have consumed the quantity set for the mental budget.By making the mental accounting assumption,we hypothesized that the consumption of self-produced food is independent of market price.Also,we hypothesized that the consumption of self-produced food is increasing in the quantity of production if production is lower than the set budget,and independent of the quantity of production if production exceeds the set budget.By applying a double-log demand model and using survey data from six poor rural counties in China,we tested these hypotheses for five food items,which are rice,flour,potatoes,pork,and eggs.We found that the hypothesis of no significant effect of price holds for flour,potatoes,and pork if production is lower than the set budget,and for rice,pork,and eggs if production is higher than the set budget.Production has a significant positive effect on consumption of selfproduced food but with a much greater influence when production is lower than the set budget for all five food items.These findings partly support our assumption of mental accounting of self-produced food.Limitations,policy implications,and possible future studies are discussed.

Unlocking the Network Traffic Password of the Sudden Popularity of Oriental Selection:Consumer Behavior Decision-Making Mechanism Based on Mental Accounting Theory

This paper explores the decision-making mechanism of the consuming behavior hidden behind the sudden popularity of the Oriental Selection Company in terms of the mental accounting theory.Firstly,according to the“Non-alternative”characteristics of mental accounting,this paper expounds how the strategy of the bilingual live-streaming of Oriental Selection promoters stimulates consumers’desire to buy the advertised products and services whilst using the utility theory of mental accounting to analyze how Oriental Selection promoters improve consumers’acquisition utility and total utility.Secondly,we sum up the successful experiences of Oriental Selection:The live-streaming industry should apply the theory of mental accounting in effectively overcoming the shortcomings of the live-streamed marketing by stimulating consumers’desire and influencing their decision-making behavior through the streaming of content that triggers them to make purchases.This is achievable by abandoning the traditional ways of loudly urging consumers to buy goods.Finally,this paper puts forward some suggestions on how to use the mental accounting theory in promoting sustainable consumption and points out the prospects for Oriental Selection.

Prospect Theory and the Newsvendor Problem with Mental Accounting

The manner in which economic outcomes are coded in a value function is critical because it has substantial influence on the evaluation of risky choices.In this paper,we formulate multiple mental accounts in a nonlinear value function and propose a newsvendor problem with mental accounting to predict and explain pull-to-center phenomenon.We show that the distinctive predictions of the proposed model come from the value function with mental accounting.We identify the individual and combined effects of loss aversion,risk aversion,and risk seeking on shaping newsvendor ordering behavior.Our work demonstrates that prospect theory can explain the decision bias and ordering behavior observed in newsvendor experiments.We also provide some additional insights to explain the studies in the literature.