Finally, this thesis also identifies the antecedents, moderators and mediators that affect the role of anticipated regret on purchase intention. The results of the experimental study indicate the gender effect that female consumers generate more anticipated regret than males when confronting with price discount promotions. The results of comparison analysis demonstrate the sequence effect that, the effect of anticipated regret on purchase intention is larger if consumers are asked to anticipate regret of not purchasing the promotional item before their final purchase decision rather than if they are asked in the reverse sequence. The analysis results on the relationship between perceived value and anticipated regret indicate that anticipated regret is the mediator in the effect of perceived value on purchase intention. / Fourth, this thesis then studies the effect of price discount frequency on consumers' behavioral response with focusing on the affective stage of consumers' response and proposes a model that simultaneously considers consumers' attitude and anticipated regret. The results of an experimental study demonstrate that price promotion frequency negatively affects consumers' anticipated regret and purchase intention, and that the effect of promotion frequency on consumers' purchase intention is fully mediated by consumers' attitude towards the purchasing behavior together with consumers' anticipated regret. / Second, this thesis examines the effect of price discount framing on consumers' response, and proposes a price-value model to account for the effect of price discount framing on consumers' purchase intention. Results of two experiments indicate that price discount framing affects consumers' purchase intention through the full mediation of perceived value. The framing of dollar-based discount leads to higher perceived value and higher purchase intention than the framing of percentage-based discount; however, these effects are moderated by the degree of discount calculation difficulty and the price level of the promotional products. / The findings of this thesis have both potentially important theoretical significance for a better understanding of price discount promotion and practical implications for directing marketers to more effectively design their price discount promotion schemes. The research limitations of this thesis and future research directions are also discussed. / Third, the thesis investigates the effect of price discount depths on consumers' behavioral response. Under the means-end framework, this thesis extends the price-value model by including anticipated regret and proposes an integrated model to account for the mechanism that underlies consumers' behavioral response towards price discount promotion. The results of a survey study indicate that the proposed integrated model fits the data well, and that consumers' purchase intention is better explained and predicted by including consumers' anticipated regret in the model. / This thesis investigates how price discount promotion affects consumers' purchase decision making process with emphasis on the role of consumers' anticipated regret. Specifically, this thesis examines how the three important characteristics of price discount promotion (i.e., discount framing, promotion depth, and promotion frequency) affect consumers' behavioral response. First, this thesis provides a comprehensive review for the research literature regarding how price promotion affects consumers' response, making an in-depth discussion of the concept of anticipated regret, and then empirically identifying the effects of promotion framing, promotion depth, and promotion frequency on consumers' behavioral response. / Hao, Liaogang. / Advisers: Jianmin Jia; Samart Powpaka. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-159). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.

This dissertation contains three essays on risk aversion. In the first essay, we an- alyze comparative risk aversion in a new way, through a comparative statics problem in which, for a cost, agents can shift from an initial probability distribution toward a preferred distribution. The Ross characterization arises when the original distribution is riskier than the preferred distribution and the cost is monetary, and the Arrow-Pratt characterization arises when the original distribution differs from the preferred distribution by a simple mean-preserving spread and the cost is a utility cost. Higher-order increases in risk lead to higher-order generalizations, and the com- parative statics method yields a unified approach to the problem of comparative risk attitudes. In the second essay, we analyze decisions made by a group of terrorists and a government in a zero-sum game in which the terrorists minimize a representative citizen's expected utility and the government maximizes it. The terrorists' strategy balances the probability and the severity of the attack while the government chooses the level of investment reducing the probability and/or mitigating the severity. We find that if the representative citizen is risk neutral, the terrorists' response is not associated with the government's action and the representative citizen's risk attitudes affect the strategies of the government and the terrorists. Risk aversion always in- creases equilibrium severity but does not always increase equilibrium expenditure of the government. In the last essay, we consider a situation in which an individual has to pay for a good before he realizes the state-dependent surplus of the good. This ex-ante willingness to pay is called the option price and the difference between the option price and the expected surplus is the option value. We find that the option value actually is the buying price for a fixed payment of the expected surplus, and there is a special case in which the option value equals the negative of the compensating risk premium. We also find the effects on the option price and the option value when the expected utility assumption is replaced by a rank-dependent expected utility.

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This thesis is concerned with (i) how to estimate the perceived mortality risk, (ii) how to calculate the welfare change of mortality risk reduction and (iii) whether ambiguity aversion influences subjects' treatment decision. This study is an important topic in environmental and resource economics, and the attempt to introduce ambiguity preference into the models might shed light on future research in nonmarket valuation. In this study, I estimate the economic value of reducing mortality risk relating to arsenic in drinking water employing contingent valuation in U.S. arsenic hot spots. Re-cent studies have shown that perceived risk is a more reliable variable than scientific assessments of risk when applied to interpret and predict individual's averting behavior. I am also interested in the confidence level of perceived risk, which was elicited and treated as the degree of risk ambiguity in this paper. I develop a formal parametric model to calculate the mean willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reduction, and find weak evidence of ambiguity aversion.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed on Jan. 23, 2007). PDF text: 141p. : ill. (some col.) ; 2.17Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3217537. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche format.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 104 p. : col. maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-88).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 2007. / Supervisors: Gary J. Russell, Sri Devi Duvvuri. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-109).

Business models integrating the internet into their value propositions have demonstrated varying levels of viability. In particular, firms offering information-based products via the internet commonly are unable to generate sufficient revenue and, consequently, experience financial losses. Researchers continue to examine factors which motivate individuals' willingness-to-pay for online content. One factor from the marketing literature which has been argued to affect consumer behavior is social influence. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of the three levels of social influence, micro-, meso-, and macro-, on both willingness-to-pay for online content and each other. This is accomplished by examining social influence in the context of online gaming, which has proven to be one of the most successful industries in integrating the internet as a delivery channel for information-based goods. Our results suggested that all levels of social influence play a considerable role in the product valuation process. While micro-level influences, such as attitude, arguably serve as the best predictors of WTP, we found that macro-level social influence, in the form of reputation, played the greatest role in affecting the formation of individual attitudes and behaviors. This was due not only to its direct effect on WTP, but also a consequence of several significant indirect effects. Our hypothesis that an interaction effect occurs between social influences such that their effect on WTP would be "greater than the sum of their parts" was not supported. Nonetheless, our study demonstrates social influence's ability to affect an individual is not a straight forward process. Only examining the relationships between constructs occurring at different levels of social structure does the magnitude of interaction which occurs between them becomes apparent.