Does corporate diversification reduce value in high technology firms?

We find that firm value is reduced via industrial diversification and this reduction in value depends upon a firm’s technology intensity. We consider that asymmetric information problems are more severe in technology intensive industries and find that high tech industry firms present distinctly larger value reduction when compared to low tech industry firms. The negative valuation effect is greater for firms that have a relatively larger amount of intangible assets and greater R&D capital. We determine that our findings are robust to different estimation methods and alternative excess value measures.     

Structural Changes in China’s Import Market: A Comparison with Korea’s Exports to China

The article examines the structural changes of China’s import market for domestic demand and the corresponding structural changes of Korea’s exports to China for Chinese domestic demand. Using 8-digit HS code data covering the period 2006–2014 and analyzing the processing steps as well as by industry, this study reveals that while the share of ordinary trade in total China’s imports has increased rapidly, the share of processing trade has decreased continuously since the mid-2000s. The article also shows that Korea’s exports to China is still processing trade-oriented. The slowdown of Korea’s exports to China is because of the concentration on processing trade, intermediate goods, electronics and chemistry.     

An Analysis of Trade Patterns and the Effects of the Real Exchange Rate Movements in East Asia

This article investigates the patterns of vertical specialization in trade among China, Japan and Korea, and the effects of real exchange rate fluctuations under a multistage production process. By extending the models of Yi (2003, 2010), we derive two distinct features of vertical specialization and test them using Time-Varying Parameter (TVP) VAR. We find that a positive shock to China’s final good consumption increases the intermediate goods trade between Korea and China, with expanding magnitude over time. In addition, the positive effect of a real exchange rate depreciation on intermediate goods trade is strengthened through the competitiveness-enhancing channel, with this effect being more pronouncing in Korea-China trade than in Korea-Japan trade.     

Cultural attributes and risk perception: the moderating role of different types of research and development

Drawing on the grid–group culture theory, this study examines hypotheses to explain how the cultural attributes of an organization influence professionals’ perceptions of risk in the context of research and development (R&D) activities. Specifically, we explore whether two dimensions of cultural attributes – the grid dimension and the group dimension – affect organizational commitment and risk perception. We also investigate whether the impact of the cultural attributes on risk perception is mediated by organizational commitment and whether different types of R&D activities – applied research and developmental research – serve as a moderating variable on the relationships among cultural attributes, organizational commitment, and risk perception. The partial least squares method was used to analyze data collected from full-time senior researchers with over five years of experience at a large technology institute. Our findings indicate that cultural attributes influence the risk perception of R&D professionals through the mediating function of organizational commitment. Further, we found that different types of R&D activities have moderating effects on the relationship between organizational commitment and risk perception.     

Population Structure and Housing Prices: Evidence from Chinese Provincial Panel Data

This study analyzes the relationship between the proportion of the economically active population aged 15–64 to total population and housing prices. A panel of 31 provinces in China from 2002 to 2014 is used in our analysis. We find empirical evidence that the impact of the population structure on housing-price growth increases as the population growth rates rise. This observation suggests that, to understand provincial housing price movements in China, one should consider the ratio of working-age population to total population in a province. The main policy implication is that Chinese policymakers need to ensure a moderated population growth to effectively promote stability in housing prices and the economy.     

Credit Risk Models – Do They Deliver Their Promises? A Quantitative Assessment

We develop a framework to assess the statistical significance of expected default frequency calculated by credit risk models. This framework is then used to analyse the quality of two commercially available models that have become popular among practitioners: KMV Credit Monitor and RiskCalc from Moody's.
Using a unique database of expected default probability from both vendors, we study both the consistency of the prediction and its timeliness. We introduce the concept of cumulative accuracy profile (CAP) that allows to see in one curve the percentage of defaulting companies captured by the models one year in advance. We also use the Miller's information test to see if the models add information to the S&P rating.
The result of the analysis indicates that these models indeed add relevant information not accounted for by rating alone. Moreover, with respect to rating agencies, the models predict defaults more than ten months in advance on average.
(J.E.L.: C52).     

An alternative bivariate zero-inflated negative binomial regression model using a copula

We propose an alternative bivariate zero-inflated negative binomial (BZINB) regression model based on a copula. The empirical result shows that the proposed model performs better than the existing BZINB models in terms of the maximum log-likelihood and the AIC.