Resolving the impasse on hospital scale economics: a new approach

The existence of scale economies in hospitals in important for both public and managerial policy, yet production and cost function studies have found conflicting evidence. More recently, more sophisticated studies have typically found scale diseconomies, which is inconsistent with the views of industry participants and observers. In the early 1980s. California deregulated both private and public health insurance (Medical), which provides a natural laboratory for examining hospital efficiency. Using Stigler's original and multivariate survivor analysis, we resolve the conflict in favour of scale economies, and reconcile the controversy. The survivorship methodology in simple to apply, and a useful tool in conjunction with statistical cost and production studies.     

Stability of money demand function revisited in China

As China's economic reforms have undergone significant structural changes after 1979, it has been rather difficult to formulate a stable money demand function over the period following that year. While previous literature on the long-run relationship of money demand in China shows the existence of stable money demand, this article revisits the stability of the China money demand function over the period after 1979. To employ the unit root tests and the cointegration tests with structural break, the empirical evidence demonstrates that economic and financial deregulation did affect the stability of demand for money in China over the period 1977 to 2002. Moreover, the estimated long-run income and interest elasticity are respectively 1.01 (1.11) and ?0.14 (?0.08) using the real M1 (M2) equation. In addition, real income and the interest rate are found to be weakly exogenous. We overall do find structural breakpoints mainly in 1980 and 1993, and they look to match clearly with corresponding critical financial and economic incidents.     

URBANIZATION,HEALTH AND HUMAN STATURE

Economic growth has not always generated improvements in a population's health. Biological indicators of human well‐being, including stature, suggest the march to prosperity was not a steady one, and these biological indicators offer estimates of the health costs associated with modern economic growth. We employ an international data set to study the socioeconomic benefits and health costs associated with the transition to modern economic growth during the nineteenth century. We find that while the growth of GDP per capita had a positive impact on the stature of Western populations, prior to the mastery of the germ theory of disease, urbanization had a strong negative impact.     

MONEY,CAPITAL, AND EXCHANGE RATE FLUCTUATIONS*

We explore how the informational frictions underlying monetary exchange affect international exchange rate dynamics. Our perfectly flexible price model is capable of producing endogenously rigid international relative prices in response to technology and monetary shocks. The model is capable of accounting for the empirical regularities that the real and nominal exchange rates are more volatile than U.S. output, and that the two are positively and perfectly correlated. The model is also consistent with other standard real business cycle facts for the United States.     

Testing for the Presence of Moral Hazard Using the Regulatory Reform in the Car Insurance Market: Case of Korea

The aim of this paper is to investigate the presence of the moral hazard phenomenon in the Korean car insurance market. In the context of natural experiment, I examine whether the regulatory reform introduced in 2000 generates significant difference in accident probability between before and after the reform. Further, I analyse the different effects of regulatory reform on different parts of the outcome distribution. In any case, I do not find the significant effects of regulatory reform on accident probability.     

Foreign ownership and the credibility of national rating agencies: Evidence from Korea

By analyzing bond price reactions to rating changes in Korea, this study adds a new angle to the existing literature on Global Rating Agencies (GRAs, i.e. Moody’s, S&P’s, Fitch) with higher reputation/independence vs. National Rating Agencies (NRAs) with more in-depth local knowledge. Faced with substantial regulatory burdens, GRAs have chosen to operate indirectly in the Korean domestic market by acquiring local NRAs. In our event study, cumulative abnormal returns following downgrades by a wholly domestically owned NRA tend to dominate those from downgrades by two affiliates of GRAs. This casts doubt on the additional information value of reputation capital acquired through GRA ownership as perceived by emerging markets.     

Convergence and catching up in ASEAN: a comparative analysis

The increasing diversity of average growth rates and income levels across countries has generated a large literature on testing the income convergence hypothesis. Most countries in South-East Asia, particularly the five founding ASEAN member countries (ASEAN-5), have experienced substantial economic growth, with the pace of growth having varied substantially across countries. Recent empirical studies have found evidence of several convergence clubs, in which per capita incomes have converged for selected groupings of countries and regions. This paper applies different time series tests of convergence to determine if there is a convergence club for ASEAN-5, as well as ASEAN-5 and the USA. The catching up hypothesis states that the lagging country, with low initial income and productivity levels, will tend to grow more rapidly by copying the technology of the leader country, without having to bear the associated costs of research and development. Given the important effects of technological change on growth, this paper also examines whether ASEAN-5 is catching up technologically with the USA.     

Productivity and technical change: the case of Taiwan

This paper analyses productivity growth in 16 of Taiwan's manufacturing industries during the period 1978–1992. The non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis approach is used to compute Malmquist productivity indexes. These are decomposed into efficiency change and technical change. The latter is further decomposed into an output bias, an input bias and a magnitude component. In addition, the direction of input bias is identified. Empirical results indicate that the sector's TFP increased at a rate of 2.89% per annum, which could be ascribed to a technical progress (2.56%) and an efficiency improvement (0.33%).     

Profiling mobile TV adopters in college student populations of Korea

By profiling demographic characteristics, perceived general adoption attributes, perceived value-based adoption attributes, motivational needs, mass media use, and content interest, this exploratory study examines the nature of four categories of mobile TV adopters — current, potential, continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups. Despite the limited sample size (N = 214), there are some meaningful findings. First of all, the non-adoption rate of mobile TV of the continuous non-, and discontinuous user groups is higher than the adoption rate of the current and potential user groups. Less than half of the respondents (N = 34) who had used TV on a mobile device were unwilling to use it again in the next twelve months, and almost half of those (N = 102) did not have the intention of using it within the coming year. The results suggest that the discontinuous group seems to have been dissatisfied with the actual mobile TV use when compared with their expectations and evaluations, while the potential user group is more likely to have high expectations and positive evaluations before the adoption and use of mobile TV. All user groups were unwilling to pay the fee, despite the current and potential user groups perceiving the exceptional values. No differences were found in the personality trait of innovativeness and mass media use behaviors among the four groups.     

Explorations - Introduction: Towards Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Perspectives in Economics: Why and How They May Make a Difference

The economics profession has only recently begun to include research on lesbians and gay men, but we argue that a lesbian economics has long existed, with documentation of anti-lesbian discrimination, discussion of its private and social costs, and practical work for change. This tradition, along with the newer traditions built upon work with gay men and bisexual people, provides a basis for feminists to expand work in economics on lesbian and gay issues. The articles in the symposium propose ideas for future research, for learning from other disciplines, and for creating a more welcoming academic climate.