Multi-buy is one method by which retailers discount alcoholic beverage sales. It is common in the UK. A Scottish ban on multi-buys had an immediate impact on sales. Because other methods for lowering price as a marketing tool will be used, the longer-term impact is unknown. Legislating a minimum price per unit of alcohol may have a longer lasting effect on overall alcohol consumption.

We propose a theory of intertemporal choice that is robust to specific assumptions on the discount rate. One class of models requires that one utility stream be chosen over another if and only if its discounted value is higher for all discount factors in a set. Another model focuses on an average discount factor. Yet another model is pessimistic, and evaluates a flow by the lowest available dis...

We estimate individual discount rates with respect to time streams of money using controlled laboratory experiments. These discount rates are elicited by means of field experiments involving real monetary rewards. The experiments were carried out across Denmark using a representative sample of 268 people between 19 and 75 years of age. Individual discount rates are estimated for various househo...

Background:  The objective of the study was to appraise the total dollar value of human life losses (TDVHL) associated with COVID-19 in Canada. Methods: The net output approach (also known as human capital approach) was applied in the dollar valuation of the 6,062 human life losses associated with COVID-19 in Canada as of 23 May 2020. The economic model was rerun five times: (a) using the nati...

A recent survey by Brookshire, et. al., (2006) suggests that forensic economists are mixed in their use of current versus historical data to estimate future net discount rates.1 Typically the choice is between a long-term average or simply the current prevailing rate.2 Cushing and Rosenbaum (2006) proposed an estimator that optimally uses the information in the past behavior of net discount rat...

This paper uses a field experiment to test whether intrahousehold heterogeneity in discount factors leads to inefficient strategic savings behavior. I gave married couples in rural Kenya the opportunity to open both joint and individual bank accounts at randomly assigned interest rates. I also directly elicited discount factors for all individuals in the experiment. Couples who are well matched...