The present paper investigates whether providing prepaid incentives to non-respondents enhances response rates in a push to web mail survey with address-based sampling (ABS). ABS refers to a sampling method that uses address data held by the United States Postal Service as a sampling frame, which is considered to have cost advantages over area sampling and RDD. In Japan, the first push to web ABS survey was conducted in 2023, but it was reported that the response rate was as low as 22 %. Therefore, this paper explores the effect of incentives on increasing response rates in this survey context. For the analysis, non-respondents to the push to web ABS survey were randomly assigned to three groups: no incentive, a pen, and a 300-yen QUO card group, and the effect of incentives on response behavior was analyzed. The results revealed that the QUO card group had the highest response rate. Furthermore, the cost per response was lowest for the QUO card group. Thus, sending QUO cards to non-respondents in push to web ABS surveys is considered an effective method to enhance response rates.

The Bayesian Truth Serum (BTS; Prelec, 2004) is a game-theoretic scoring rule used in psychological surveys, particularly when addressing sensitive or subjective topics. It aims to promote honest reporting in situations where respondents might otherwise be incentivized to lie or misreport their true preferences. More specifically, it calculates the BTS score, intended to reflect the honesty of responses. By implementing a scoring system that rewards unexpected yet truthful responses with this score, and by providing feedback with incentives for high scores to motivate honest responses, this method has the potential to enhance survey quality. However, there is still insufficient evidence regarding its actual effectiveness. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the replicability of the BTS and evaluate its practical usefulness. We conducted two online experiments consisting of two tasks involving coin flips and dice rolls. Nevertheless, in both tasks, no significant results were found to support the effectiveness of the BTS. These results highlight various challenges, including proper implementation, in using the BTS method.

The relationship between customers' private brand share and store loyalty has been the subject of many studies in retail marketing. However, much uncertainty still exists regarding this relationship under social changes such as pandemics. This study aims to analyze the longitudinal changes in this relationship and its characteristics across product categories using consumer panel data. Through fixed effect model analysis, we obtain three key findings. Firstly, consistent with previous research, we confirm an inverse U-shaped relationship between customers' private brand share and store loyalty in Japanese data, wherein store loyalty increases up to a certain point of private brand share and then decreases. Secondly, for the food category, store loyalty is more changeable depending on private brand share than other categories. Lastly, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, store loyalty was higher among those who purchased more private brands in the food category. These findings contribute valuable insights to the development of private brand strategies in retailing.

In recent years, “connected new products,” which work in sync with other devices or services, have surged in number. Such as products offer consumers with multiple usage values. Consequently, it has become difficult to evaluate a product based on its attributes using particular product usage, and traditional consumer decision-making models have not been able to apply to consumers' adoption of new products. This study attempts to explain this phenomenon from analogizing cases that are past similar experiences and simulating scenarios that are future images regarding product usage. Specifically, two distinct case and scenario-based decision models that are developed to confirm the integration pattern of cases and scenarios. These models are investigated through questionnaire surveys regarding the adoption decision for the new product, “Smart Display.” The estimation results demonstrate that the case and scenario-based decision model can elucidate consumers' adoption decisions for connected new products. Furthermore, it is clarified that consumers evaluate cases and scenarios independently.

As a context effect in consumer purchasing decision-making scenarios, previous research has often demonstrated that scarcity effects lead to increased purchase quantities when shelf availability is limited during brand selection. However, these findings are primarily based on laboratory studies, and research specifically examining consumer purchasing choices across entire product categories in real-world retail settings has been lacking. In this study, we investigated whether scarcity effects at the category level manifest during actual purchase situations. We measured shelf fulfillment rates and stop rates (the proportion of people passing by the shelf who paused for at least 3 seconds) using in-store cameras and analyzed point-of-sale (POS) data. Surprisingly, unlike brand selection scenarios, higher shelf fulfillment rates were associated with increased overall purchase rates across the entire category. Furthermore, the magnitude of this effect varied based on practicality and preference differences. We conducted theoretical discussions regarding these results.

This paper examines the impact of working in low socioeconomic status (SES) school districts on the depressive tendencies of teachers. While previous research has focused on school attributes and teacher attributes in relation to teacher mental health issues, the crucial influence of the socioeconomic background of the school district on teacher mental well-being has not been adequately addressed due to constraints in data availability. This paper addresses this gap by utilizing secondary data from public statistics to calculate proxies for school district SES and combines this with a survey on teacher depressive tendencies to examine the causal mechanisms between the two. The results indicate that working in low SES school districts increases teachers' depressive tendencies and that this effect persists in the long term, regardless of the conditions at the subsequent year's school (lasting at least one year). Furthermore, continued employment in low SES school districts increases the likelihood of depressive tendencies by approximately four times. Transferring to a school in a higher SES district in the second-year shows promise in alleviating depressive tendencies. This study demonstrates the potential of using public statistics to accomplish surveys that were previously challenging to conduct, highlighting the importance of considering the socioeconomic context of school districts in understanding teacher mental health.

This study analyzes the motivations behind participation in Hometown Tax Donation (HTD) and Crowdfunding-based Hometown Tax Donation (CHTD) from the perspective of crowdfunding research. HTD is a Japanese system managed by local governments that allows taxpayers to redirect their residence tax payments. We review existing crowdfunding research and construct a motivation scale based on the framework of intrinsic/extrinsic and personal/social motivations derived from Self-Determination Theory. Using structural equation modeling, we find that intrinsic personal motivation, trust, and recognition of donation outcomes are key drivers of HTD participation. Additionally, our findings show that empathy and trust in crowdfunding are significant motivations for CHTD participation.

This paper reviews the new constraint in the interaction effects model of Age-Period-Cohort analysis that the vector multiplied by the design matrix and the interaction effects is orthogonal not only to age and period but also to cohort factors. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the interaction effects model, we apply this model to the fertility trends from 1950 to 2020 in Japan and decompose delayed childbearing into interaction effects and declining fertility rate into period and cohort effects. According to the results, the period effects decline from 1950 to 2000 and the cohort effects are high for the generations born between 1951 and 1970 and gradually decline for the subsequent generations. The interaction effects show that those born between 1936 and 1960 have a relatively high fertility rate in their 20 ,s, but those born in 1970 or later have a low rate in their 20 ,s and a high rate in those aged 35 and over.

Mental accounting has been studied as a theory of financial decision making. According to it, people categorize their financial resources into various account items in their minds and assign a budget to each of them. They also categorize the same amount of money by source of income and decide where to spend it. In this study, we tested whether the theory of mental accounting can also be applied to time resources through a between-subjects design experiment. The results showed that no behavior in accordance with mental accounting was observed when time consumption was targeted. We also found conditions that needed to be met when applying the mental accounting theory to time. In addition, when a questionnaire was used to examine mental accounting tendencies for money and time, the tendency was weaker for time. Throughout the experiment, we found psychological differences in people's attitudes toward time and money. It was suggested that people have a more ambiguous view of time and may not account for time as numerically and quantitatively as they do for money.

The present study utilizes the BERTopic model to analyze the speeches in general question sessions of Miyagi Prefectural Assembly members from 2011 to 2020. Findings reveal a focused discourse on ``disaster recovery'' during the reconstruction period, highlighting the interconnected nature of topics and forming a network around this central theme. The study uncovers regional differences in topic diversity based on disaster impact and shows the persistence of ``disaster recovery'' topics in the Miyagi Prefectural Assembly over a decade, despite their reduced presence in election manifestos. While offering insights, the study acknowledges limitations due to reliance on large datasets and the need for qualitative approaches to understand the socio-political nuances behind assembly members' speeches.