Technology and Rights

What do we know about technology and rights? This article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of current issues regarding this topic. We explore and analyse a wide spectrum of rights that are challenged in this current era of technological convergence. We use the United States Bill of Rights as an example of the vulnerability of legal protections for rights against particular political and technological changes in this post 9-11 climate. New streams of rights acting as a safeguard against further incursions of technology into civil liberties are explored. We also address intellectual property rights and international trends in copyright, patent and trademark laws. We question whether these issues of technology and rights have a place in current technological literacy scenarios.     

Ownership structure and the pricing of discretionary accruals in Japan

This paper examines the valuation effect of discretionary accruals for Japanese firms, taking into account the book value of equity. Consistent with US evidence, the Japanese market prices discretionary accruals, indicating that discretionary accruals enhance the value relevance of reported earnings. This value relevance is lower for cross-held firms, consistent with the view that cross-business shareholding aggravates tunneling or managerial opportunism through discretionary accounting choices. On the other hand, foreign shareholding and bond financing provide effective monitoring on managerial discretion of profit firms to enhance the valuation of discretionary accruals.     

New development: Unified scores of governance capacity using a Bayesian latent variable analysis

A plethora of governance measures has been developed to assess governance capacity in different countries. Choosing one indicator over another involves discretionary decision issues. This article presents a new unified measure of governance capacity for the administrative and political dimensions. The unified measure provides a more accurate understanding of governance than single indices.     

An Analysis of Trade Patterns and the Effects of the Real Exchange Rate Movements in East Asia

This article investigates the patterns of vertical specialization in trade among China, Japan and Korea, and the effects of real exchange rate fluctuations under a multistage production process. By extending the models of Yi (2003, 2010), we derive two distinct features of vertical specialization and test them using Time-Varying Parameter (TVP) VAR. We find that a positive shock to China’s final good consumption increases the intermediate goods trade between Korea and China, with expanding magnitude over time. In addition, the positive effect of a real exchange rate depreciation on intermediate goods trade is strengthened through the competitiveness-enhancing channel, with this effect being more pronouncing in Korea-China trade than in Korea-Japan trade.     

The Role of Total Factor Productivity Growth in Middle-Income Countries

We examine the importance of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in middle-income countries (MICs) based on cross-country panel data for the period of 1975–2014. We find that TFP growth contributed significantly to a country’s upward transition from middle-income to high-income country group. The TFP growth model reveals that the catch-up effect, human capital, smaller population, weak currency, and research and development growth are significant sources of TFP growth. We do not find a systematic difference in the TFP growth models for MICs. In analyzing the role of factors influencing TFP growth at different income stages, strengthening innovative activities and building innovative capacities are important in overcoming the challenges that MICs face when transitioning to the high-income group. Governments of upper MICs need to initiate reform to motivate innovation by optimizing national R&D systems, and redesigning the educational system to target promoting innovation.     

Debt financing in private and public firms

Using administrative confidential data on the universe of Canadian corporate firms, we compare debt financing choices of private and public firms. Private firms have higher leverage ratios, which are entirely driven by private firms’ stronger reliance on short-term debt. Further, private firms rely more of leverage during economic expansions, while public firms rely on equity financing. Specifically, private firms manage to increase their long-term debt during expansions, while short-term debt is used during downturns. Our findings have implications for a better understanding of the role of asymmetric information in private firms’ capital structure decisions.     

A Study on the Effect of Financial Inclusion on the Relationship Between Income Inequality and Economic Growth

In this article, we attempt to estimate whether financial inclusion, expressed as financial accessibility, has a positive effect on reducing income inequality. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of such financial inclusion on economic growth by reducing income inequality. From the results of our empirical analysis, we can draw the following three conclusions. First, income inequality has a very negative effect on GDP growth. The negative relationship between income inequality and GDP growth is strong in low-income countries. In addition, income inequality has a stronger effect on reducing economic growth in high-fragility countries. Second, progressivity is not a major factor in reducing income inequality in low-income countries or in high-fragility countries. Finally, financial inclusion improves the relationship between income inequality and economic growth. The reduction in income inequality through financial inclusion changes the negative relationship between income inequality and economic growth into a positive relationship. This trend is stronger in high-fragility countries than in low-fragility countries.     

Left-digit biases: Individual and institutional investors

This study examines the left-digit bias of individual and institutional investors using the microstructural data set from a highly liquid index futures market. Both investor groups exhibit excess buying after the ask falls with a tens-digit decrement, whereas excess selling (buying) is observed only for institutions (individuals) after the bid rises with a tens-digit increment. Such excess buying is generally pronounced when price uncertainty is high. Institutional excess selling is evident when uncertainty is low and immediately after the market opens. While both investor groups focus on cognitive reference points, our findings imply that investors heterogeneously respond to the bias and that individuals experience investment losses as they trade on the bias.     

The roles of R&D team leaders in Korea: a contingent approach

This study empirically examines the relationship between the role of R&D project leaders and their team performance using data from 87 project teams in 6 R&D organizations in Korea. The results reveal that:
(1) R&D project leaders played five different roles in performing their jobs – strategic planner, team builder, gatekeeper, technical expert, and champion;
(2) All but the champion role of a leader is positively related with project team performance;
(3) However, this relationship between the role of leader and project team performance varies according to the characteristics of R&D project teams and their tasks.
Specifically, it becomes important for a leader to focus less on the team building role as the team gets older. The team building role of a leader, however, is more important for higher performance of relatively certain R&D projects, while for uncertain R&D projects, the strategic planning role appears to be more crucial. Based on these results, this study discusses several managerial and theoretical issues related to the role of a leader in R&D project teams.     

3D simulation technology as an effective instructional tool for enhancing spatial visualization skills in apparel design

The purpose of this study is to explore the effectiveness of 3D simulation technology for enhancing spatial visualization skills in apparel design education and further to suggest an innovative teaching approach using the technology. Apparel design majors in an introductory patternmaking course, at a large Midwestern University in the United States, participated in this study. Three different teaching methods (lecture, 3D simulation instruments, and paper patternmaking) were employed in consecutive instructional phases, within a single day. A short questionnaire devised to assess students’ visualization abilities and overall evaluation on the three different teaching methods was administered to the students after each of the three phases. Overall, students’ abilities to visualize 2D patterns onto a human body were improved by all three teaching methods. The 3D simulation instruments anchored positive effects of training on spatial visualization abilities between lecture and paper patternmaking practices. The results affirm that 3D simulation technology has positive potential as an efficient instructional tool for improving students’ visualization skills in apparel design.