Accumulation, Technical Progress, and Increasing Returns in the Economic Growth of East Asia

Adopting homothetic variable returns to scale functional specifications, this study identifies the returns to scale in the aggregate production functions of four East Asian newly industrialized economies–Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan–and the Group of Five economies based on a maximum likelihood estimation. The study finds evidence of increasing returns in the early developmental stage of the East Asian economies. Separating out the scale contribution from the non-scale factor contributions, the decomposition of the sources of East Asian economic growth differs significantly from the conventional constant returns to scale results, indicating that the role of technical progress is overestimated when constant returns to scale is assumed.     

Analyzing perceived hunger across states in the US

This paper focuses on the problem of analyzing how factors impact hunger across states when hunger is ill-defined. Hunger (which is a latent variable) is presumed to depend on macroeconomic, legislation, policy, and demographic variables. Based on the Bayesian method of a posterior odds ratios, we find that the high school graduation rate appears to be the single most important factor we identify which affects the perceived hunger measure. First version received: December 1996/final version received: September 1998     

New or repeat customers: How does physical environment influence their restaurant experience?

This study proposed a conceptual model to examine how customers’ perceptions of the physical environment influenced disconfirmation, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty for first-time and repeat customers in upscale restaurants. Using a structural equation modeling analysis, this study showed that facility aesthetics, lighting, layout, and service staff had significant effects on disconfirmation. Moreover, disconfirmation exerted a direct influence on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction also positively influenced customer loyalty. Finally, the impacts of facility aesthetics, lighting, table settings, and service staff on disconfirmation significantly differed between first-time customers and repeat customers. More specifically, facility aesthetics, lighting, and service staff were significant predictors of both first timers’ and repeaters’ perceived disconfirmation, while layout and table settings were significant determinants of only repeat visitors’ perceived disconfirmation. The implications for academic researchers and marketing practitioners are discussed.     

International volunteer tourism and youth travelers – an emerging tourism trend

This study attempted to examine the intricate associations among volunteer tourism (VT) motivations, overall image, satisfaction, trust, and the influence of these relationships on behavioral intentions among youth travelers. Our findings from the structural analysis indicated that VT motivations significantly contributed to building positive images, inducing satisfactory VT experiences, and building trust with a VT organization. Our results also demonstrated the competence of the higher-order structure of VT motivations in explicating the intention formation. In addition, the overall image, satisfaction, and trust played an important mediating role. Moreover, satisfaction with VT experiences was of utmost significance in determining intentions.     

An empirical study on credit card loan delinquency

Following the Basel II convention, consumer credit default is commonly defined as delinquency beyond a period of 90 days. In this study, rather than considering default as a binary variable, we dissect delinquency states further to investigate default behavior in greater detail. As such, we define three states—no delinquency, delinquency and serious delinquency—and estimate the probabilities of the transitions between states using extensive panel data from Korea, covering a wide range of behavioral information. Our findings have several economic implications. First, the factors that affect delinquency risk can differ from those that affect the transition from delinquency to serious delinquency. Second, the recent increase in the number of seriously delinquent accounts can be attributed to changes in the borrower age distribution. Third, macroeconomic conditions, especially differences in gross domestic product and consumption growth, have led to the recent increase in delinquent accounts. Fourth, the debt-to-income (DTI) ratio has a profound effect on transitions between delinquency states and thus affects both recovery and delinquency. Furthermore, this result is robust to controls for demographic and macroeconomic factors.     

The underlying mechanism of self-regulatory focus impact on compromise choice

The current research examines the psychological process underlying the differential sensitivity to the compromise effect associated with a distinct self-regulatory focus. In particular, we test two competing hypotheses: one based on the different weights assigned to decision components, and the one that draws on biased perception. This issue is explored via the statistical derivation of decision weights (Study 1), manipulation of the temporal frame of choice (Study 2), and altering the risks associated with decision-making (Study 3). The results of these three studies consistently support the differential weight account: Promotion-focused participants assign greater weight to the desirability (or hedonic value) of the choice outcome, whereas prevention-focused participants place greater weight on the likelihood (or risk) of achieving that outcome. However, perceptions regarding the desirability and the risk of the given choice are similar among those with a distinct self-regulatory focus.     

Regime-Dependent Relationships Between the Implied Volatility Index and Stock Market Index

We examine regime-dependent dynamics between Korea's representative implied volatility index (VKOSPI) and stock market index (KOSPI 200) using a two-regime threshold vector error correction model (TVECM). By analyzing high-quality daily data from January 2003 to June 2013, we make the following interesting observations based on a model with regime splitting. First, regardless of regime, we observe a negative contemporaneous correlation between the VKOSPI and KOSPI 200. Second, while the KOSPI 200 generally leads the VKOSPI under normal market conditions (lower regime), this relationship is overturned when market volatility measured by the VKOSPI level is extremely high (upper regime). Third, in the TVECM framework, the effects of lagged VKOSPI on the KOSPI 200 are positive only in the upper regime, while the effects of lagged KOSPI 200 on the VKOSPI are positive only in the lower regime; this cannot be explained by the traditional framework of an asymmetric volatility phenomenon. Fourth, the KOSPI 200 exhibits greater sensitivity to implied volatility shocks in the upper regime than it does to those in the lower regime.     

Factors of determining long-term orientation in interfirm relationships

Marketers have witnessed a paradigm shift in which establishing, maintaining, and forging long-term buyer–seller relationships are considered the core of marketing activities. Accordingly, investigating a long-term orientation (LTO) has become a steady research stream in the marketing literature. Building on this on-going research stream, this study confirms that an essential precursor of a manufacturer's LTO is trust that, in turn, is formed by relational norms and satisfaction with supplier performance. Interestingly, however, the seemingly strong trust–LTO path is moderated by both power asymmetry and environmental uncertainty in buyer–seller relationships. The empirical findings suggest that regardless of emerging relationship marketing where buyer and seller are portrayed as parts of a team, power is still in use to control suppliers. In addition, a manufacturer facing uncertainty is less likely to form LTO toward its supplier for fear of losing flexibility in the time- and quality-based competition.     

Predicting Tourists' Intention to Try Local Cuisine Using a Modified Theory of Reasoned Action: The Case of New Orleans

The purpose of the present study was to examine the utility of the modified theory of reasoned action (TRA) in predicting tourists' behavioral intention to try the local cuisine in New Orleans. The results indicated that the proposed model had strong predictive ability regarding tourists' intention to try the local cuisine. Attitude and past behavior were significant predictors of tourists' behavioral intention. In addition, the interdependence between attitudinal and normative components was partly supported. Gender had a significant moderating role in the relationships between attitude/past behavior and behavioral intention to experience the local cuisine. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Is the KOSPI 200 Options Market Efficient? Parametric and Nonparametric Tests of the Martingale Restriction

A number of studies on the S&P 500 index options market claim that the no‐arbitrage assumption cannot be rejected for this market because either the martingale restriction defined in Longstaff (1995) cannot be rejected by the data, or, even when it is rejected, a large proportion of the violation can be explained by market friction factors. The present study singles out the effect of market inefficiency from market friction by testing the martingale restriction for the KOSPI 200 index options market, which is the most liquid and active options market in the world. Not only using the parametric methods adopted in previous studies but also using the nonparametric methods that enable us to avoid the model misspecification problem, we empirically present clear evidence of a violation of the martingale restriction. In addition, in contrast to the S&P 500 options market, regression analyses and robustness tests indicate that market friction factors can explain only a small portion of the percentage differences between option‐implied and market‐observed index prices. Overall, the results do not support the basic no‐arbitrage assumption or the market efficiency in the KOSPI 200 options market.