Counting Care Work in Social Policy: Valuing Unpaid Child- and Eldercare in Korea

This study demonstrates the usefulness of quantifying and valuing time spent on unpaid care work and explores the links between social policies, unpaid care work, and gender equality in the context of recent social care reforms in the Republic of Korea. Using information provided by two nationally representative surveys, this article elaborates on the gendered organization of care provision and the total costs of care services for children and the elderly, including unpaid family care, family expenditures on care services, and state support in the form of public expenditures. The study finds that omitting the role of family care services overestimates the state's role in caring for children and elderly adults. A closer look at the impact of long-term care insurance reveals the need for integrated analyses of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the social organization of care, especially in regard to gender equality.     

Buchanan on increasing returns and anticommons

This article discusses Buchanan’s work on increasing returns and anticommons. The two topics have externality as a common element. And size matters in both cases. Increasing returns is a case of positive externalities, the anti-commons is a case of negative externalities. Buchanan demonstrated that a work ethic generates economy-wide benefits in a setting of generalized increasing returns. In contrast, unanimity (in anticommons) can make it more difficult to address other externality problems in analyzing work ethic and moral community. This article provides an overview of both these areas of research.     

Exploring promising vacant technology areas in a technology-oriented company based on bibliometric analysis and visualisation*

Under technology convergence phenomenon and fast-changing social demands, it is inevitable to collect and analyze a large amount of information in order to determine a vacant technology area that can preempt the market. Thus, this research aims to propose a systematic approach to identifying vacant technology areas by reflecting the technological competitiveness of company. Vacant technology is identified as underdeveloped and undeveloped vacant areas for a firm in both macroscopic and microscopic view by generating a technology level map in a practical view. In addition, vacant technology can be identified as undiscovered vacant areas in a microscopic view by using generative topology mapping (GTM) and local outlier factor (LOF). In a respective view, the promising vacant areas are defined by developing various indicators that represent competitive strength, growth stage, and marketability in both macro and micro level, and novelty indicators that represent originality and marketability in the micro level. The proposed approach is applied to the information & communication technology (ICT) R&D technology classification to validate its usefulness. The results can be used to enhance the practical application of R&D technology planning, understand the current technology level, and perform future technology planning.     

The Role of Chonsei as a Price Protector in the Korean Housing Market

In this study, we investigate whether ‘Chonsei,’ the distinctive type of housing contract system in Korea, has a favorable impact on house prices during a market downturn. We show the mechanism in which Chonsei prevents a sharp drop in house prices based on sellers’ loss aversion behavior. Moreover, using data on the Seoul condominium (i.e. apartment) market during the 2006–2017 period, we find that Chonsei prices have a negative impact on the housing trade volume in a market recession. This finding is consistent with our argument that loss aversion behavior appears with regard to the rise in Chonsei prices and thereby Chonsei functions as a price protector in the Korean housing market.     

Is high real interest rate persistence an intrinsic characteristic of industrialized economies?

Recent empirical findings show that post-war real interest rates are quite persistent and that they also contain a large number of structural changes in their means. In this study, we also find concurring results for real interest rates from thirteen industrialized countries. We show, however, that when the presence of various nonstationarities such as changing means is accommodated, some of the real interest rates exhibit substantially lower persistence or even become I(0). Our findings indicate that high real interest rate persistence is not necessarily an intrinsic characteristic of industrialized economies.     

It's all the miners' fault: On the nonlinearity in U.S. unemployment rates

The U.S. unemployment rate is generally regarded as nonlinear. In this study, we show that if there had been no miners' general strike in October of 1949, and if the aggregate unemployment rate had been 0.3% lower during that month, the 1948–2002 U.S. unemployment rate would have been linear. Hence, just a single alteration of past events would have resulted in significantly different findings regarding the linearity in the U.S. unemployment rate. This finding illustrates a need for linearity tests to be developed that are robust against the effects of outliers.     

Training investment and organizational outcomes: a moderated mediation model of employee outcomes and strategic orientation of the HR function

Using a predictive research design with data collected at three different time points over a four-year period from 277 firms in South Korea, we investigated how and when investment in employee training leads to improved organizational outcomes. The results showed that employee commitment and competence mediated the relationship between training investment and organizational outcomes. The moderated mediation analyses further revealed that the mediated relationship between training investment and organizational outcomes via employee commitment and competence was stronger when the human resources (HR) function within an organization was highly strategically oriented. Based on the results, implications for strategic HR research and practice were provided.     

Affective and continuance commitment and their relations with deviant workplace behaviors in Korea

This study examined the nature of the relations between affective and continuance components of organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1991, Human Resource Management Review, 1: 61–89) and deviant workplace behaviors (DWB; Bennett & Robinson, 2003) in a sample of 120 Korean employees and their supervisors. As expected, we found that affective commitment was negatively related, and continuance commitment was positively, albeit modestly, related to supervisor ratings of DWB. Implications for the theory and practice are discussed.     

Characteristics of the Industrial Distributor's Innovation Activities

Recent trends in industrial distribution suggest that distributors may perform an important role in various stages of product innovation from idea generation, through product design, to product launch and subsequent marketing. In this article, Eunsang Yoon and Gary Lilien review the literature and discuss the potential role of the industrial distributor as an innovation participant. An exploratory study with an Australian data base suggests that the industrial distributor performs tasks associated with market-driven product innovation (reformulation and imitative new products in particular) as effectively as the industrial manufacturer.     

Determinants of the Rate of Return for Nonresidential Real Estate: Inflation Expectations and Market Adjustment Lags

This paper analyzes the economic forces that determine the real rate of return for nonresidential real estate. Our analysis shows that the intermarket variation in the real rate of return is statistically significant, and the rate of return differs by land use and market area, as well as over time in response to changes in macro-economic conditions. We use inflation variables as surrogates for changes in macroeconomic conditions over time. In contrast to earlier studies, we find that nonresidential real estate may not outperform expected inflation. We believe that the impact of expected inflation (and other macroeconomic variables) on real estate rates of return depends upon the interaction of the macro-environment and specific local real estate market conditions. Finally, our empirical evidence suggests that the effects of a given shock dissipate rather quickly in most markets when we take into account locational and property use differences.