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Under the impetus of federal law, each state is required to develop Guidelines by which to determine presumptive child support awards following divorce. The key federal requirement is that during the specified quadrennial reviews of each state’s Guidelines, “a state must consider economic data on the cost of raising children.” Our purpose here is to compare presumptive child support awards provided in typical state Guidelines with the actual monetary costs of raising children.

To this end, we estimate these monetary costs from government data on consumer outlays in households with children as compared with substantially similar childless households. We review and reject current methods for determining child costs: both from income equivalence methods and those offered in annual government surveys; and provide quite different results despite using the same data employed by others.

Our econometric results indicate much lower monetary costs than reported for either of the two alternatives. Since presumptive child support awards in most states rely on current methods, these findings suggest that existing award structures should be re-evaluated.

Current award structures create a financial asset resulting from the gap between presumptive awards and monetary costs for custodial parents. This factor engenders resentment by support payers since it is his or her payments that fund this asset. And this resentment harms relationships between the parents. Increased willingness of non-custodial parents to make their assessed payments is an outcome promoted when payment amounts reflect the actual monetary costs of raising children.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a model in which the perceived post-purchase monetary costs and time costs of switching from a pioneer product are a function of the perceived difficulty of comparing follower products with the pioneer product, the variety of ways in which the pioneer product is used by an adopter, pioneer adopter satisfaction with the pioneer, the familiarity of the pioneer adopter with follower products and the anticipated reactions to switching of other household members who use the pioneer product.

The authors test this model with data collected from 518 Japanese iPad owners. Hypotheses are evaluated using structural equation modeling.

The authors find that each of the hypothesized independent variables is related in the hypothesized direction with one or both types of switching costs.

Findings indicate that the variety of pioneer product use, the perceived negative reaction of other household users of the pioneer product and comparison difficulties between the pioneer and follower product have an important influence on the perceptions of the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer to a follower product.

Findings suggest that managers responsible for launching follower products can lower the perceived costs of switching from a pioneer product through specific product design and communication decisions.

In contrast with prior switching-cost research, this paper focuses on switching costs as perceived by pioneer adopters and examining the importance of pioneer-follower product comparison difficulties, the variety of pioneer product use and the negative reactions of other household users of the pioneer product.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the monetary valuation implications arising from local government tree trimming, by calculating the loss of local government authority’ monetary tree value arising from trimming trees under power lines.

A city council model of estimation of the monetary value of city trees in a sample of three streets in a suburb of the Perth Metropolitan Area in Western Australia is applied to ascertain the loss of monetary value to the local government authority arising from tree trimming.

Using a sample of 274 city trees, the results of the study show that 156 city trees did not get trimmed thus incurring no monetary loss. However, the average loss of monetary value from 118 city trees that were trimmed was AU$2,816 per tree, suggesting a substantial loss of value to the council.

The use of monetary tree valuation should be treated with caution as there is a focus on monetary calculations rather than non-monetary evaluations of trees. Further, the analysis does not take into account increases in value of city trees resulting from their growth.

In trimming trees, monetary value and canopy cover of trees may be reduced. In terms of property management, it may be helpful for the city council to take into account loss of city tree value from tree trimming when considering a cost-benefit analysis of the above ground/underground trade-off of power line installation.

With increasing populations and demand on services, local government authorities may use monetary valuation techniques of trees to provide an accountability to ratepayers.

The results highlight the value loss of trimming a tree. The study’s originality rests in providing local government authority a valuation.

Prefabricated products are continually entering the building construction market; yet, the decision to use prefabricated products in a construction project is based mostly on personal preferences and the evaluation of direct costs. Researchers and practitioners have debated appropriate measurement systems for evaluating the impacts of prefabricated products and for comparing them with conventional on-site construction practices. The more advanced, cost–benefit approach to evaluating prefabricated products often inspires controversy because it may generate inaccurate results when converting non-monetary effects into costs. As prefabrication may affect multiple organisations and product subsystems, the method used to decide on production methods should consider multiple direct and indirect impacts, including nonmonetary ones. Thus, this study aims to develop a multi-criteria method to evaluate both the monetary and non-monetary impacts of prefabrication solutions to facilitate decision-making on whether to use prefabricated products.

Drawing upon a literature review, this research suggests a multi-criteria method that combines the choosing-by-advantage approach with a cost–benefit analysis. The method was presented for validation in focus group discussions and tested in a case involving a prefabricated bathroom.

The analysis indicates that the method helps a project’s stakeholders communicate about the relative merits of prefabrication and conventional construction while facilitating the final decision of whether to use prefabrication.

This research contributes a method of evaluating the monetary and non-monetary impacts of prefabricated products. The research underlines the need to evaluate the diverse benefits and sacrifices that stakeholder face when considering production methods in construction.

This chapter builds monthly time-series of Divisia monetary aggregates for the Gulf area for the period of June 2004 to December 2011, using area-wide data. We also offer an “economic stability” indicator for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) area by analyzing the dynamics pertaining to certain variables such as the dual price aggregates, aggregate interest rates, and the Divisia aggregate user-cost growth rates. Our findings unfold the superiority of the Divisia indexes over the officially published simple-sum monetary aggregates in monitoring the business cycles. There is also direct evidence on higher economic harmonization between GCC countries – especially in terms of their financial markets and the monetary policy. Monetary policy often uses interest rate rules, when the economy is subject only to technology shocks. In that case, money is nevertheless relevant as an endogenous indicator (Woodford, M. (2003). Interest and prices: Foundations of a theory of monetary policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.). Properly weighted monetary aggregates provide critical information to policy-makers regarding inside liquidity created by financial intermediaries. In addition, policy rules should include money as well as interest rates, when the economy is subject to monetary shocks as well as technology shocks. The data show narrow aggregates growing while broad aggregates collapsed following the financial crises. This information clearly signals problems with the financial system's ability to create liquidity during the crises.

In an attempt to create national harmonisation of legislation, a set of model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations were developed in Australia. These regulations require principal contractors to undertake specific WHS planning and coordination activities if the construction works to be completed cost AU $250,000 or more. However, there are some doubts about the usefulness of this monetary threshold. This study aimed to investigate how effective this threshold can be in Australia.

To evaluate the performance and operation of this threshold in the Australian construction industry, this study modelled the costs of construction for four construction project scenarios – small classroom, two-storey home renovation with adjacent pool, small commercial warehouse and single-storey house (volume home builder) – under various conditions based on historical data (2011–2017) and in eight Australian jurisdictions.

Among the six study factors (i.e. the types for construction, geographical location, design specification, delivery method, contracting approach and inflation), the research found considerable variation in the operation and performance of the monetary threshold.

The research highlights some potential challenges associated with the use of a monetary threshold in the regulation of WHS planning in construction projects. Thus, the results are expected to contribute to addressing these challenges, leading to the development of an appropriate balance to achieve efficient and effective WHS regulation in Australia.

In the hybrid knowledge-sharing platform where paid and nonpaid (“free”) knowledge activities coexist, users’ free knowledge contribution may be influenced by financial factors. From the perspective of opportunity cost, this study investigates the direct effect of how the amount of monetary income from users’ contribution to paid knowledge activities influences their free knowledge contribution behavior in the future. Further, this study aims to verify the interaction effect of financial and nonfinancial factors (i.e. the experience of free knowledge contribution and social recognition) on free knowledge contribution.

Objective data was collected from a hybrid knowledge-sharing platform in China and then analyzed by using zero-inflated negative binomial regression model.

Results show that the amount of monetary income that knowledge suppliers gain from paid knowledge contribution negatively influences their free knowledge contribution. Experience of free knowledge contribution strengthens the negatively main effect, while social recognition has the weakening moderating role.

Although some studies have explored and verified the positive spillover effect of financial incentives on free knowledge contribution, the quantity dimension is ignored. This study examines the hindering influence of the quantity of monetary income from the perspective of opportunity cost. By taking the characteristic of knowledge suppliers and platforms as moderators, this study deepens the understanding of the influence of monetary income on free knowledge contribution in the hybrid knowledge-sharing platform.