The economic and ecological damages caused by wildfires are alarming. Because such damages are expected to increase with changes in wildfire regimes, this calls for more effective wildfire mitigation and adaptation strategies. Wildfire adaptation options for forestland owners include purchasing wildfire insurance, which provides compensation to those insured if a wildfire damages their properti...

Simple income-based incentives to purchase health insurance (tax credits or deductions, or subsidies) are unlikely to succeed in significantly reducing the number of uninsured because income is not a good predictor of the extent to which individuals use medical service. Proposals to provide incentives to low-income people so they will purchase individual health insurance need to address the inh...

Objective: The substantial level of out-of-pocket expenditure for health care by the population causes policy makers to draw particular attention to the proposal of a social health insurance for uninsured members of the community. Hence, it is essential to gather reliable information about the amount of Willingness To Pay (WTP) for health insurance. We assessed the WTP for health insurance in I...

Extended service contracts have been the major profit generator for many consumer electronics retailers as they contribute to half of the retailers' profit. My dissertation studies how consumers make purchase decisions of extended service contracts and how the ESC purchase decisions are related to the product purchase decisions. Essay 1: " Why Do Consumers Buy Extended Service Contracts? " The ...

PURPOSE Although prior research suggests that economic, behavioral, and psychosocial factors influence decisions not to purchase long-term care insurance, few studies have examined the interplay among these factors in depth and from the consumer's point of view. This study was intended to further illuminate these considerations, generate hypotheses about non-purchasing decisions, and inform the...

Later this year, new provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 will transform the health care industry. Consumers will be able to purchase insurance through health insurance marketplaces, but many people who already have insurance could see their premiums rise. Insurers will need to help consumers navigate the new system.

Insurance for the poor, called microinsurance, has recently drawn the attention of practitioners in developing countries. However, there are common problems among the various schemes: (1) low take-up rates, (2) high claim rates, and (3) low renewal rates. In this paper, we investigate take-up decisions using household data collected in Karnataka, India, especially focusing on prospect theory, h...