Personal Credit and Financial Vulnerability

Rather than a narrow focus on risk of default, this paper advocates for lenders to take a broader data-led approach to tackling the challenges posed by financial vulnerability due to its latent and transient nature. Earlier identification and intervention when customers are experiencing financial hardship may help prevent default. Firstly, we consider how macro and micro data sources, in combination with emerging theoretical frameworks that conceptualise financial vulnerability, could be used by lenders for earlier identification of vulnerable customers. Secondly, we look at tailored interventions that could help financially vulnerable consumers once they have been identified, with passive and active methods inspired by protective efforts currently underway within the gambling industry. Lastly, when consumers do enter the arrears process, we highlight how lenders have a responsibility to help mitigate cognitive biases and promote behaviours that will help consumers escape perpetual debt.

Commentary: the unintended consequences of digital service technologies

Purpose This commentary puts forth a conceptual framework, referred to as the consumer, organization, government framework of unintended digital technology service failures, that specifies consumer, organizational and governmental shortcomings that result in digital technologies failing in terms of negatively affecting consumer, communal, national and/or global welfare. Design/methodology/approach The authors conceptualize an original framework by engaging in a literature review regarding marketplace failures associated with digital service technologies. Findings The framework shows that three drivers explain why commercial digital technologies often fail. The first driver highlights misuse or criminal intent from individuals. The second involves organizations failing to prevent or to address technology failures. The third pertains to failures that stem from governmental institutions. Research limitations/implications The authors encourage researchers to build on their framework by putting forth research questions. To prevent or lessen opportunities for digital technologies to result in service failures, the authors also offer practitioners a “digital technology service failure audit.” This audit shows how digital technology creators and managers can anticipate and address consumer, organizational and governmental factors that often cause digital service technologies failures. Social implications Despite the absence of industry-specific regulations and the existence of some regulatory immunities, digital technology providers have an ethical duty, and may be obligated under applicable tort law principles, to take steps to prevent unintended harm to consumers before launching their service technologies. Originality/value This work reveals that digital technologies represent new and different threats to vulnerable consumers, who often rely on, but do not fully understand, these technologies in their everyday living. The framework helps consumers, organizations and government agencies to identify and remedy current and potential instances of harmful digital technologies.

Economic Feasibility of Iodine Agronomic Biofortification: A Projective Analysis with Ugandan Vegetable Farmers

Cost–benefit analysis of (iodine) biofortification at farm level is limited in the literature. This study aimed to analyze the economic feasibility of applying iodine-rich fertilizers (agronomic biofortification) to cabbage and cowpea in Northern Uganda. Data on costs and revenues were obtained from a survey of 100 farmers, and benefits that would accrue from using iodine fertilizers were elicited using consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the iodine-biofortified vegetables. The cost–benefit analysis demonstrated iodine agronomic biofortification as a highly profitable effort, generating average benefit–cost ratios (BCRs) of 3.13 and 5.69 for cabbage and cowpea production, respectively, higher than the conventional production practice. However, the projective analysis showed substantive variations of economic gains from iodine biofortification among farmers, possibly due to differences in farming practices and managerial capabilities. For instance, only 74% of cabbage farmers would produce at a BCR above 1 if they were to apply iodine fertilizer. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis to estimate the effect of subsidizing the cost of iodine fertilizer showed that a higher proportion of farmers would benefit from iodine biofortification. Therefore, as biofortification is considered a health policy intervention targeting the poor and vulnerable, farmers could be supported through fertilizer subsidies to lower the production cost of iodine-biofortified foods and to avoid passing on the price burden to vulnerable consumers.

Mixed emotions and credence service use: insights from at-risk gamblers

Purpose This paper aims to explore the power of appeals based on fear mixed with challenge co-designed with vulnerable consumers in motivating the use of credence services. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative phase (Study 1), comprising focus groups of self-identified at-risk gamblers, revealed a series of conceptual themes for advertising stimuli that were then tested empirically (Study 2) on the likelihood to use credence services in a gambling context. Individual characteristics such as tolerance of ambiguity were also tested for their potential moderating influence. Findings In comparison to appeals based on single emotions, fear mixed with the challenge has a significantly stronger impact on intentions to use credence services in at-risk gamblers. Findings confirm the indirect positive impact of fear mixed with the challenge via sequential mediators of involvement with advertising and attitude towards credence service advertising. The moderating role of tolerance of ambiguity on credence service use intentions was confirmed. Originality/value The potential of a fear mixed with challenge appeal to motivate vulnerable consumers to seek credence services has not been investigated to date. The findings contribute to both the transformative service research and advertising literature streams by providing valuable insights into promotional campaigns aimed at vulnerable consumers such as at-risk gamblers.

Drafting Video Game Loot Box Regulation for Dummies: A Chinese Lesson

Loot boxes are virtual items in video games that players purchase to obtain randomised rewards of varying value. Such randomised monetisation methods are prevalently implemented globally. Loot boxes are conceptually and structurally akin to gambling, and their purchase is positively correlated with problem gambling in Western countries. Given the potential harms loot boxes may cause, particularly to vulnerable consumers, e.g., children, regulators and policymakers are paying increasing attention. Some countries, e.g., Belgium, have actively enforced existing gambling laws to ban certain loot box implementations. However, less restrictive regulatory approaches, e.g., requiring probability disclosures, are also being considered. Amendments to existing law and new laws dedicated to regulating loot boxes are likely forthcoming in many countries. Companies’ discretionary and suboptimal compliance with loot box probability disclosure law in the People’s Republic of China reveals how future loot box laws and industry self-regulations should be better drafted to ensure maximum consumer protection.

PROPERTY-SYNDICATION INVESTMENT V PROPERTY SCAM: WHO DECIDES? A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC-PROPERTY SYNDICATION SCHEMES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Building an investment portfolio is an important part of saving for retirement. This not only benefits the individual concerned but it also has benefits for the economy as a whole. Investment in property is regarded as an essential element of an investment portfolio and many investors have over the years invested in public-property syndications. Unfortunately such investments have proved to be very risky and there have been some spectacular failures with severe consequences especially for elderly, vulnerable consumers. There is a need to ensure that all investment opportunities are properly regulated and different aspects of property syndications are regulated by different regulators including the Reserve Bank, the Department of Trade and Industry, the newly established Consumer Commission and the Financial Services Board. There seems to be some confusion amongst regulators over which entity is ultimately responsible for ensuring that such investments are sound and reliable and that consumers can have faith that they are not investing in a scam. The fact that no one regulator is responsible for overseeing the full picture is problematic because it enables the unscrupulous to slip under the radar and avoid detection. This paperseeks to consider the question of which regulator is or should be responsible for regulating public-property syndications and to make some suggestions for reform going forward.

Awareness and Attitudes of Student Dietitians in Lebanon, UK and USA towards Food Safety

Allied health professionals such as dietitians can play a critical role in providing food safety advice to vulnerable consumers. To maximize food-related health and wellbeing, food needs to be safe and nutritious; consequently, food safety is referred to in international curricula for the training of dietitians. The purpose of this study was to explore the awareness and attitudes of student dietitians from three international institutions towards food safety. A total of 207 student dietitians participated in the study from Columbus, OH, USA (n = 99), Cardiff, Wales, UK (n = 78) and Beirut, Lebanon (n = 30). Completion of the study established that the students in three dietetic training programs lacked awareness of key food safety concepts. Close to half (43%) were not familiar with Campylobacter, with the USA students being significantly less knowledgeable (p < 0.001) with 58% being unaware of the pathogen. Understanding of safe handling of leftovers was the lowest for the students in all institutions; only 46% described appropriate reheating practices, with significantly lower (p < 0.001) understanding in Lebanon (28%). The students reported a good understanding of vulnerable populations and perceived food safety to be important for these groups. However, the knowledge of certain high-risk foods was lacking. For instance, 69% of students thought that fresh squeezed juices and smoothies made with raw fruits and vegetables were safe for vulnerable patients, with the UK students being the least familiar with this risk (16%). This is the first study of its kind to take an international perspective of student dietitian food safety awareness and attitudes; the findings are important to dietetic food safety educators and recommendations are made to further explore the interpretation of food safety requirements in international dietetic curricula. Future studies should extend student dietetic research to address attitudes, self-efficacy and the overall readiness to deliver food safety advice to the patients and the community.

Personalized Law

We live in a world of one-size-fits-all law. People are different, but the laws that govern them are uniform. “Personalized Law”—rules that vary person by person—will change that. Here is a vision of a brave new world, where each person is bound by their own personally tailored law. “Reasonable person” standards would be replaced by a multitude of personalized commands, each individual with their own “reasonable you” rule. Skilled doctors would be held to higher standards of care; the most vulnerable consumers and employees would receive stronger protections; age restrictions for driving or for the consumption of alcohol would vary according to the recklessness risk that each person poses; and borrowers would be entitled to personalized loan disclosures tailored to their unique needs and delivered in a format fitting their mental capacity. The data and algorithms to administer personalized law are at our doorstep, and embryos of this regime are sprouting. Should we welcome this transformation of the law? Does personalized law harbor a utopic promise, or would it produce alienation, demoralization, and discrimination? This book is the first to explore personalized law, offering a vision of law and robotics that delegates to machines tasks traditionally performed by humans. It inquires how personalized law can be designed to deliver precision and justice and what pitfalls the regime would have to prudently avoid.