Equity and the environment: An application of the Berliant–Strauss vertical and horizontal equity framework to measuring the distributional effects of air quality regulation

The distributional effects of a major air regulation in the United State in 2015 were analyzed using Berliant and Strauss Index Numbers, a set of theoretical and empirical equity metrics, and reduced‐form models that estimate the mortality effects of air pollutant emissions and their source contributions. By viewing the effects of pollution on human mortality as an implicit tax, we found progressivity in 54% to 56% of vertical comparisons and inequity in 92% to 94% of horizontal comparisons. The introduction of the proposed policy made 58% of vertical comparisons more progressive and was equitable to 70% of horizontal comparisons.     

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.     

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.     

Economic Effect of Zoning Regulations on Korea's Small and Medium‐Sized Retailers*

In this paper, we investigated the economic effects of zoning regulations on the retail industry in Korea. We estimated the changes in the number of sales for retail stores using a panel regression analysis for stores in traditional markets. This analysis was conducted to examine the benefit of zoning regulations on retail stores. Our results show that the zoning regulations (called Traditional Commercial Activity Protection Zones) have contributed to an improvement in the actual business performance of small independent retailers. We found that the amount of sales for each store clearly increased on average in the areas designated as Traditional Commercial Activity Protection Zones where there was no market entry of mega supermarket chains (called SSM in Korea). We also present evidence that the effects of this policy differ geographically: the effects were stronger for small and medium cities than for large metropolitan cities. These results suggest that zoning regulations enacted by the government to protect traditional markets and small retailers should also consider regional differences when assessing policy effectiveness.     

Consequences of Customer Dissatisfaction in Upscale and Budget Hotels: Focusing on Dissatisfied Customers’ Attitude Toward a Hotel

It is important to understand customer dissatisfaction in order to maintain a sustainable business, given that the negative effects of customer dissatisfaction in service businesses may be even greater than the positive effects of satisfaction. This study investigates customer dissatisfaction and its consequences by focusing on the mediating role of attitude toward a hotel according to different hotel classes related to customer expectation level. The results show a mediating role for attitude in the relationship between customer dissatisfaction and specific negative behavioral intentions. This study broadens our knowledge of customer dissatisfaction and the role of attitude toward a hotel in the relevant literature. The empirical findings demonstrate that regardless of hotel type, customer dissatisfaction significantly affects their attitude and their consequent negative behavioral intention.     

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.     

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.     

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.