LABOUR MARKET ACTIVITY OF FOREIGN SPOUSES IN TAIWAN: EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND CHOICE OF EMPLOYMENT SECTOR

The present study examines the employment status and choice of employment sector of female foreign spouses from Southeast Asia and Mainland China in Taiwan. The conceptual framework is based on the family labour supply model, human and social capital theory, and immigrant assimilation theory. Our findings indicate that in regard to employment status, family background variables, including the presence of small children and husbands' characteristics, play a more significant role in determining the employment probability for these foreign spouses than do human capital variables. In particular, for spouses from Southeast Asia, each additional child is correlated with a decrease in working probability of 11.3%, whereas college education has an insignificant effect on their employment probability. Employment assimilation for these marriage immigrants may be confirmed by the finding that the employment probability of foreign spouses rises rapidly with the number of years that have elapsed since migration. As for the choice of employment sector, a strong linkage between the employment sector of the foreign spouses and their husbands' employment sector is found in this study.     

The integration-responsiveness framework and subsidiary management: A response

The discussion that follows responds to Haugland's (forthcoming) questions regarding the justification for using the I-R framework, the appropriateness of using the framework's implied taxonomy as the basis for formulating hypotheses and conducting empirical tests of differentiated fit, and the usefulness of the implications thereby derived. This response also discusses the applicability of the alternative structural model proposed by Haugland from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The discussion shows that the fit approach by Lin and Hsieh (forthcoming) may better explain subsidiary strategies and management than Haugland's model does. This response demonstrates the appropriateness and extends the applicability of the I-R framework.     

The partial adjustment of IPO prices to public information and issuing methods in Taiwan

Using 1997 to 2009 exchange-listed data, we examine the treatment of public information by underwriters throughout the entire initial public offering (IPO) price-setting process in Taiwan. We find that regardless of which mechanism (fixed-price, auctions, or book-building) an issuer has chosen, the partial adjustment of the IPO offer prices to public information is evident in our study. Although both fixed-price and book-built issues show a modest but statistically significant relationship between market returns and the level of initial returns, we find economically meaningful effects for both issuing methods. Our findings also demonstrate that auctioned IPOs exhibit strong evidence of partial adjustment to market returns. That is to say, the estimated effect is statistically and economically significant. Therefore, we attempt to provide rational explanations for such phenomena.     

Pricing efficiency of the S&P 500 index market: Evidence from the Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts

Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts (SPDRs) are exchange traded securities representing a portfolio of S&P 500 stocks. They allow investors to track the spot portfolio and better engage in index arbitrage. We tested the impact of the introduction of SPDRs on the efficiency of the S&P 500 index market. Ex‐post pricing efficiency and ex‐ante arbitrage profit between SPDRs and futures were also examined. We found an improved efficiency in the S&P 500 index market after the start of SPDRs trading. Specifically, the frequency and length of lower boundary violations have declined since SPDRs began trading. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that SPDRs facilitate short arbitrage by simplifying the process of shorting the cash index against futures. Tests of pricing efficiency comparing SPDRs and futures suggested that index arbitrage using SPDRs as a substitute for program trading in general results in losses. Although short arbitrages earn a small profit on average, gains are statistically insignificant. A trade‐by‐trade investigation showed that prices are instantaneously corrected after the presence of mispricing signals, introducing substantial risk in arbitraging. Evidence in general supported pricing efficiency between SPDRs and the S&P 500 index futures—both ex‐post and ex‐ante. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:877–900, 2002     

A final price prediction model for english auctions: a neuro-fuzzy approach

Online auction has now been a popular mechanism in setting prices for internet users. However, auction price prediction, involving the modeling of uncertainty regarding the bidding process, is a challenging task primarily due to the variety of factors changing in auction settings. Even if all the factors were accounted for, there still exist uncertainties in human behavior when bidding in auctions. In this paper, three models, regression, neural networks and neuro-fuzzy, are constructed to predict the final prices of English auctions, using real-world online auction data collected from Yahoo-Kimo Auction. The empirical results show that the neuro fuzzy system can catch the complicated relationship among the variables accurately much better than the others, which is of great help for the buyers to avoid overpricing and for the sellers to facilitate the auction. Besides, the knowledge base obtained from neuro fuzzy provides the elaborative relationship among the variables, which can be further tested for theory building.     

Is there the threshold effect of cigarette price on smoking prevalence? A cross-country panel data analysis

This article shows new cross-country evidences by empirically investigating the joint effects of cigarette price levels and joining the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) on smoking prevalence in 74 countries over the period of 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006. We assessed cigarette price elasticity for three national income levels using different databases on cigarette price from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), demographic and socioeconomic country characteristics from the World Bank and adjusted smoking prevalence rates published by various yearly WHO reports on the global tobacco epidemic from 2000 to 2010. A panel threshold regression was used to capture the nonlinear effects that cigarette prices on smoking prevalence at the three national income levels endogenously determined by estimation. Our findings supported the evidence that joining the WHO FCTC would have a positive effect on reducing cross-country smoking prevalence, especially among countries with low- and medium-income levels. Moreover, some simulated results show that a price hike of 10% would reduce smoking prevalence in countries with national income levels equal to or less than US$1900 and by 7.2% in countries with national income levels between US$1900 and US$2510 more than those with national income levels that are higher than US$2510.     

The effect of customer participation on service providers' job stress

There have been conflicting explanations of how customer participation affects service providers' job stress. This study explores the relationship between the two. Survey data from 293 customer-contact employees at 64 restaurants in Taiwan indicate that customer participation is positively related to perceived job stress and perceived workload, implying that it is inappropriate to explain job stress from the perspective of partial employees. Moreover, while customer participation increases the level of job stress, workload is only a superficial explanation for the relationship. The real explanation is role conflict, which is associated with changes in job characteristics. Implications of these findings for managing customer participation are subsequently discussed.     

Measuring user perceived service quality of online auction sites

This study proposes a measure for online auction sites' service quality (OA-SQ). The conceptualisation is based on a literature review of service quality research and an analysis of the unique characteristics of online auctions. A pilot study refined the initial scale. A second survey data set tests the final scale. Results of both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis show high construct validity of the scale. The scale includes 24 items for seven dimensions: efficiency, system availability, privacy/security, compensation, personalisation, playfulness, and reputation.     

Captive Financing Arrangements and Information Asymmetry: The Case of REITs

For the sample period of 1985 and 1986, captive real estate investments trusts (REITs) have a larger bid-ask spread than noncaptive REITs, after controlling for trading volume, price volatility, insider holdings, institutional holdings and firm size. Based on the bid-ask spread literature, the results suggest that captive firms are subject to a greater degree of information asymmetry. This implies a higher cost of capital for captive firms. The evidence here and the trend toward self-administered REITs imply that information asymmetry and conflicts of interests within REITs are priced.