This study aims at identifying factors affecting formal credit constraint status of rural farm households in Vietnam's North Central Coast region (NCC). Using the Direct Elicitation method (DEM), we consider both internal and external credit rationing. Empirical evidences confirm the importance of household head's age, gender and education to household's likelihood of being credit constrained. In addition, households who have advantages in farm land size, labour resources and non-farm income are less likely to be credit constrained. Poor households are observed to remain restricted by formal credit institutions. Results from the Endogenous Switching Regression model suggest that credit constraints have negative impact on household's consumption per capita and informal credit can act as a substitute to mitigate the negative influence of formal credit constraints.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact that several of these factors have on a consumer’s decision to hold a credit card, as well as those involved in determining the level of credit card limit. Design/methodology/approach Potential explanatory variables were identified in the literature, then used to build a binary logit model to test the impact of the card and consumer characteristics on credit card ownership. Data were collected via a structured interview of 409 consumers living in Hebei Province, China. Findings The results indicate that convenience in use, level of credit card interest rates, the application process, number of people in the household, a rewards programme, marital status, credit limit and age influence the likelihood of the respondent holding a credit card. Further, an anaylsis shows that the number of credit cards held, duration of holding a credit card, monthly credit card purchasing volume and having a degree at the tertiary level, are significantly and positively related to different levels of credit limit. Originality/value In summary, in order to attract more consumers to credit card use, the banks and credit card companies should consider making it more convenient for consumers to use their credit cards. Moreover, banks can increase their networking and degree of cooperation with merchants to increase the acceptance of payment by credit card. The most heavily used businesses such as supermarkets and smaller retailers, where consumers purchase goods frequently, would be good targets for banks’ attention. In addition, banks might also improve credit card reward programmes to make these more efficient and perhaps increase the size of the rewards customers can earn through card use.

Gamification is a promising approach to tackle users' infrequent and decreasing use of health apps. For this purpose, extant research provides developers of health apps with a vast number of different game elements. By abstracting from the implementation of single game elements and choosing a more holistic approach to gamification concepts, we iteratively develop a taxonomy of gamification concepts for health apps using inductive and deductive approaches and discuss its transferability to other gamification contexts. We contribute to a profound understanding of the main characteristics of gamification concepts and enable researchers and practitioners to classify and distinguish them. Our results provide interesting insights into the essential characteristics of health apps' gamification concepts.

Health impairments due to inactivity are related to the car-oriented urban development of recent decades, along with sedentary lifestyles. A health-maintaining environment must therefore not only reduce direct health risk factors (pathogenic concept), but also contribute to health chances that may indirectly support health (salutogenic concept). Walking has been identified as the most influenceable behavior; it is also the most environmental friendly mode of transport, social and health. From the planning view, the concept of walkability therefore aims at a built environment facilitating physical activity. It is increasingly recognized that walkability has become an important topic in the field of planning, urban design and health, since the built environment affects certain behaviors. From practice, concrete guidance is demanded as to the type of urban design features to be captured or applied to evaluate the walkability or to create active cities. The measurement of features of the built environment plays a special role in this context, but also the question of how research results can reach policies as well as planning and building practice