Evidence of a glass ceiling for arts and culture professionals in Korea

Using the five available waves of the Wage Structure Survey data, this study employs quantile decomposition to investigate the existence of a glass ceiling among Korean professionals. The decomposition results for all professional workers show an inverse U-shape, which implies no evidence of a glass ceiling. However, we find a monotonically increasing pattern for arts and culture professionals, indicating strong evidence of a glass ceiling on their labour market. This result implies that, as the wage quantile moves from lower to higher levels, female professionals in arts and culture jobs face significant barriers to career advancement. This analysis supports the recent assertion of UNESCO that gender equality in culture is not immune to inequalities and discrimination.     

Auditors' Responses to Workload Imbalance and the Impact on Audit Quality*

Using detailed data for fieldwork hours and audit hours by rank from audit engagements in Korea, we examine whether audits conducted under workload imbalance, proxied by busy‐season audits, impair audit quality, and how auditors adjust staff assignments for busy‐season audits. We generally find that busy‐season audits are associated with lower audit quality, and that audit firms reduce the involvement of senior auditors during busy‐season audits. In addition, the greater the involvement of senior auditors and junior auditors, the lesser the deterioration in audit quality. Finally, although there is no increase in interim audits in response to workload imbalance during busy seasons, increasing interim audits can mitigate the negative impact of busy‐season audits on audit quality. Our results are relevant to auditors and regulators, who have expressed concerns about the adverse effects of workload imbalance on audit quality.     

Microstructure-based manipulation: Strategic behavior and performance of spoofing traders

We examine how investors strategically spoof the stock market by placing orders with little chance of being executed, but which mislead other traders into thinking there is an imbalance in the order book. Using the complete intraday order and trade data of the Korea Exchange (KRX) in a custom data set identifying individual accounts, we find that investors strategically placed spoofing orders which, given the KRX's order-disclosure rule at the time, created the impression of a substantial order book imbalance, with the intent to manipulate subsequent prices. This manipulation, which made use of specific features of the market microstructure, differs from previously studied forms of manipulation based on information or transactions. Roughly half of the spoofing orders were placed in conjunction with day trading. Stocks targeted for manipulation had higher return volatility, lower market capitalization, lower price level, and lower managerial transparency. We also find that spoofing traders achieved substantial extra profits. The frequency of spoofing orders decreased drastically after the KRX altered its order-disclosure rule.     

Modernization and dependency revisited: U.S. direct investment,development, and polity in Latin America, 1950–1998*

Since World War II, the modernization model has been the mainstream paradigm for economic development. Modernization assumes that foreign capital is a necessary catalyst for transforming societies from traditional to modem. Challenges to the modernization paradigm culminated in dependency theory. Dependency theorists point to detrimental effects of foreign capital and domination (e.g., income inequality, authoritarianism, and inappropriate consumption). Despite the charge by many scholars that this debate has subsided, basic but important questions remain to be answered. This paper assesses the role of U.S. direct investment (USDI) on the major economies of Latin America over time (1950–1998). Using Vector Autoregression, we look at the long‐term political relationships between USDI, economic development, and the degree of authoritarianism in the host country's government. We treat these variables as endogenous as both dependency and modernization hypothesize relationships among them. We find that there are only weak long‐term relationships between polity, development, and USDI. These results fully support neither the modernization nor the dependency model.     

Probabilistic assignment of objects: Characterizing the serial rule

We study the problem of assigning a set of objects to a set of agents, when each agent receives one object and has strict preferences over the objects. In the absence of monetary transfers, we focus on the probabilistic rules, which take the ordinal preferences as input. We characterize the serial rule, proposed by Bogomolnaia and Moulin (2001) [2]: it is the only rule satisfying sd efficiency, sd no-envy, and bounded invariance. A special representation of feasible assignment matrices by means of consumption processes is the key to the simple and intuitive proof of our main result.     

Impacts of Trade Liberalisation Commitments on the Vietnamese Economy: A CGE Approach

This article quantifies the economic effects of tariff reduction following Vietnam's WTO accession. It differs from previous studies in several aspects. First, the model incorporates non‐standard features of the Vietnamese economy (e.g. changes in the domestic tax system). Second, the model divides Vietnamese households into 10 groups, allowing for the assessment of household welfare and income distribution. Third, the model has been run employing the most up‐to‐date database available. The major findings are summarised as follows. First, Vietnam as a whole would benefit from trade liberalisation. Second, the overall gain would be accompanied by a redistribution of income and a moderate increase in inequality between the rich and the poor. Third, concerning sectoral output, export‐oriented sectors, sectors with large shares of input in total imports, and those with increased domestic demands are likely to expand, whereas, in contrast, domestic‐oriented sectors are likely to contract. Measures to increase labour mobility, target disadvantaged groups and areas, and further liberalise service sectors are recommended as the recipe for effective utilisation of integration, as well as a more equitable pattern of growth.     

Effects of the matching fund program on IPO and bankruptcy of SMEs in Korea

Most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Korea struggle in financing R&D. Thus, the Korea Core Industrial Technology Investment Association (KITIA) was established to implement a matching fund program (MFP) to help SMEs with this undertaking. Applicant firms to the MFP are reviewed first based on their technology levels and are required to attract financing from venture capitalists (VCs), before receiving funds from the MFP. This paper, based on KITIAs MFP applicant data from 2001 to 2004, evaluates the performance of the MFP in terms of the success rate of funded SMEs’ initial public offerings (IPOs) and bankruptcy rates in relation to those SMEs that could not attract matching funds. Propensity score matching was used to eliminate selection bias from the data in order to assess the actual treatment effect of the MFP. According to the result of logistic regression applied to the matched data, MFP apparently did not have significant effects on IPO success and bankruptcy. This implies that MFP needs to allow VCs more time to evaluate SMEs covering qualitative aspects as well. It is expected that this change of structure can provide better performance of MFP in terms of IPO success and bankruptcy of matched SMEs.     

How do consumers’ perceptions differ across dimensions of corporate social responsibility and hotel types?

This study develops three hypotheses regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of the hotel industry. First, the study examines a ranking of consumers’ perceived importance of the four CSR dimensions proposed by Carroll’s hierarchy of CSR in 1991, expecting the following orders: philanthropic, ethical, legal, and economic dimensions, from most to least important. Second, the study investigates the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of and their overall support for CSR. Third, the study introduces the type of hotel (for example, economy, mid-scale, and upscale) as a moderator to provide a better explanation of the relationship between consumers’ perceived importance of the CSR dimensions and support for CSR. Contributions to the CSR literature in general, and also specifically relating to the hotel context, and managerial implications are discussed.     

Technological Progress versus Efficiency Gain in Manufacturing Sectors

This study decomposes the nonparametric Malmquist productivity index for 36 Korean manufacturing sectors into two components: technological change and technical efficiency change. The empirical results show that while each sector displays quite different growth patterns, productivity growth is dominated by technological change. Technological change is found to have a negative correlation with efficiency change. Secondary regression performed in this study identifies the relationship between productivity growth measures and several key policy variables, such as effective protection rate, market concentration, and so forth. The productivity estimates are compared with those of the conventional Törnqvist productivity index.     

Understanding the Benefit Sought by Rural Tourists and Accommodation Preferences: A South Korea Case

Rural tourism has been widely acknowledged for its effectiveness in contributing to rural areas’ development. With strong government support, rural tourism has developed in many countries during the last several decades. This study aims to improve the understanding regarding tourism in Korean rural areas using a segmentation approach. The responses of 442 tourists in 23 rural villages were analyzed. Four segments of tourists were identified based on the different benefits they sought for their vacation in rural establishments. The estimation of a multinomial logit model determined the socio‐demographic characteristics and the preferred accommodations of a rural tourist. Discussions and implications of the detailed findings are provided in the last section. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.