Household Use of Agricultural Chemicals for Soil-Pest Management and Own Labor for Yard Work

In spite of its potential health and environmental risks and contribution to agribusiness, the use of agricultural chemicals for yard care has not been well studied. In our discrete-continuous choice model, estimated with data from a national survey, a household chooses how much money, if any, to initially spend on types of agricultural chemicals and applicators and how much time to subsequently spend on other yard work. Households in big cities or with large gardens are more likely to use organic chemicals. The probability that a household chooses a mix of do-it-yourself and hired applications of synthetic chemicals increases with income, age, and the presence of preschoolers. Among households that apply only synthetic chemicals without hired help, those with young children, with higher incomes, in big cities, and with male heads spend more on the chemicals. The time that such households spend on other yard work increases with expenditures on the chemicals. Cancellation of a pesticide registration might create an extra private cost for households with young children even though the ban might reduce external costs.     

Willingness to pay for managerial training: A case from the knitwear industry in Northern Vietnam

Managerial capital has received attention in recent years as one of the major determinants for enterprise productivity, growth, and longevity. While recent empirical studies make it clear that training intervention can improve the management level, it remains unclear why the managers had not made efforts to obtain these basic knowledge. To test the hypothesis that the reason lies in low valuation for obtaining knowledge, we conduct experimental training programs for the managers of SMEs in a knitwear cluster in rural town in Vietnam. We find that the demand for these training was indeed low prior to training, but increased greatly with own learning experience, and that those with a higher prior demand tended to benefit more from the training.     

Intragroup Transactions,Corporate Governance,and Corporate Philanthropy in Korean Business Groups

This study examines how the corporate philanthropy decisions of group-affiliated firms in Korea (Chaebol firms) are made. Based on the attention-based view, we argue that when corporate decision makers at group-affiliated firms focus their attention more (less) on internal markets than external stakeholders because of the firm’s high (low) reliance on intragroup transactions, the firm will decrease (increase) its level of corporate philanthropy. We further argue that the relationship will be stronger when governance mechanisms focus on the instrumental value of corporate philanthropy. Using a panel sample of group-affiliated firms in Korea from 2011 to 2015, we find that as intragroup sales increase, the level of corporate philanthropy decreases, and such a negative relationship is stronger when outside director representation and foreign investor ownership are high. Our study suggests that internal dependence and corporate governance mechanisms jointly affect the level of corporate philanthropy at firms in a business group. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on corporate philanthropy, business group, and corporate governance.     

A cross‐national validation of a new retail customer equity model

This study aims to examine retail customers of China and Korea with a view to understanding the differences in the effects of customer equity on perceived store loyalty. We built a modified model of retail customer equity incorporating three drivers of retail customer equity (experience equity, brand equity and relationship equity), and further substantiate the relationships among the three equity drivers. For this purpose, we measured the customer equity of large scale discount stores located in China and Korea. The result shows that experience equity and brand equity significantly influence customer loyalty, whereas relationship equity does not. The relationships among the three drivers of customer equity revealed that experience equity significantly affects both brand and relationship equities, but relationship equity does not significantly affect brand equity. Based on country level analysis, on Korean side the experience equity influences relationship equity, brand equity and store loyalty, whereas on Chinese side, experience equity influences relationship equity and brand equity,     

How do natural and man-made disasters affect international trade? A country-level and industry-level analysis

This study examines the influence of disasters on international trade with a gravity equation model. Four types of disasters will be introduced: natural disasters, technological disasters, political risks, and financial crises. Existing literature implies that any type of disasters can either positively or negatively associated with international trade. The effects of disasters are different across the socioeconomic status of trade pairs and across industries as well as across different types of disasters. Results from country-level and industry-level show that natural disasters reduce international trade flows by raising trading and security costs and hardening borders. In contrast to previous findings, these results show that terrorism activities and technological disasters increase the international trade particularly between developed countries. The econometric specification controls unobserved characteristics of trade pairs and endogeneity problems. Managerial implications and future research are discussed.     

Political Economy of International Policy on the Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies in Global Climate Change Regime

Global governance on climate change has embraced the transfer of environmentally sound technologies as a crucial means of implementation to meet mitigation and adaptation. During the negotiation toward the Paris Agreement that replaced the Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the negotiation on technology development and transfer experienced contestation between developed and developing countries over policy direction and options. Under this context, why, in which policy options, and how developed and developing countries have clashed have not been fully explored yet in the issue area of climate change. This paper attempts to unpack the negotiations over technology development and transfer as a part of the Paris Agreement by three dimensions of marketisation, privatisation, and de-regulatory approach on the theoretical ground of discursive contestation between neo-liberalism and structuralism. This research, revealing the ground and the range of stretched contestant policy options, will provide a means to discern whether policies and modalities to be adopted to implement the Paris Agreement are skewed toward developed countries or developing countries.     

Performance Ratings and Career Advancement in the US Federal Civil Service

Abstract

A strong link between performance and rewards in the U.S. federal civil service could raise top performers to positions of power and responsibility and motivate employees to greater productivity. Federal employees, the general population and scholars all express doubts about the strength of that link, however, though few have estimated it empirically. Using random-effects panel data models on a one per cent sample of federal personnel records for 1988–2003, we examine whether performance ratings meaningfully influence promotion probabilities and annual salary increases. With an average annual promotion rate of 17.8 per cent over this period, we estimate that employees with ‘outstanding’ and ‘less than fully successful’ ratings were one-fourth more likely and one-fifth less likely, respectively, to receive promotions than those with ‘fully successful’ ratings. Average salary impacts were smaller but still significant. Patterns held up across agencies and stages of the federal careers. Performance ratings continued to affect career advancement one or two years later. We speculate on whether these links are strong enough to motivate performance and advance the most qualified federal employees.     

Audit Hours and Unit Audit Price of Industry Specialist Auditors: Evidence from Korea

Higher audit fees associated with auditor industry specialization could represent higher unit price charged by industry specialist auditors (ISAs) or the provision of a greater quantity of audit services. This study exploits a field setting in Korea, where the disclosure of audit hours is required in company annual reports, and finds that ISAs charge significantly higher total audit fees but also expend significantly greater audit hours than non‐ISAs. When audit fees and hours are considered together, the unit audit price of ISAs is significantly lower than that of non‐ISAs. This indicates that higher total audit fees associated with ISAs are likely to be attributable to greater audit hours associated with ISAs. However, greater audit hours for ISAs may suggest higher audit quality or may simply indicate that the additional audit work performed by ISAs is conducted by relatively cheaper junior auditors. Our work provides an alternative explanation for the higher total audit fees documented in the previous studies.