Systemic risk in market microstructure of crude oil and gasoline futures prices: A Hawkes flocking model approach

We propose the Hawkes flocking model that assesses systemic risk in high-frequency processes at the two perspectives—endogeneity and interactivity. We examine the futures markets of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil and gasoline for the past decade, and perform a comparative analysis with conditional value-at-risk as a benchmark measure. In terms of high-frequency structure, we derive the empirical findings. The endogenous systemic risk in WTI was significantly higher than that in gasoline, and the level at which gasoline affects WTI was constantly higher than that in the opposite case. Moreover, although the relative influence's degree was asymmetric, its difference has gradually reduced.     

Economic Education in Korea: Current Status and Changes

The authors describe key aspects of precollege and undergraduate economic education in Korea. They show that precollege students seem to have low economics literacy due to problems with the curriculum and insufficient training of teachers. At the undergraduate level, they show that economics departments have more male students than female students and that the employment rate for economics majors is lower than for business majors. They hope to draw more of Korean economists' attention to research initiatives in economic education.     

Imperfect information and labor market bias against small and medium-sized enterprises: a Korean case

We examine the labor market’s bias against small and medium-sized enterprises focusing on the Seoul Digital Industrial Complex case. We adopt Heckman’s approach to control selection bias, and use primary data from questionnaire surveys conducted at both firm and employee levels. We find that conventional firm-specific factors, such as wages, fringe benefits, and weekly work hours, primarily explain the labor market bias, but imperfect information is also positively associated with the bias. For example, a firm’s inadequate ability to identify a pool of potential employee candidates or to provide them comprehensive firm- or job-specific information tends to worsen labor shortages, and an employee’s ex-ante incomplete knowledge of on-the-job training or education opportunities tends to increase ex-post turnover intentions. Our results suggest that reducing the market bias requires improving imperfect information as well as conventional firm-specific conditions.     

A comparative analysis of the change in R&D efficiency: a case of R&D leaders in the technology industry

This paper measures the cumulative change in research and development (R&D) efficiency of globally leading R&D companies in the technology industry. We use Data Envelopment Analysis /Malmquist index to analyse 49 such companies. The change in R&D efficiency is analysed by decomposing the Malmquist index into ‘catch-up’ and ‘frontier shift’ indices, and by comparing cumulative indices to those at the starting period. Those cumulative indices are obtained at both a firm and an industry level. Results indicate that the overall R&D efficiency of these globally leading R&D companies declined slightly during the period 2007–2013. At a firm level, this study determines in detail how the trend of each firm in R&D activities differs from other companies.     

Weather risk management in ski resorts: Financial hedging and geographical diversification

As weather volatility increases, weather risk has become a critical management issue in weather sensitive industries. This study uses ski resorts as an example to examine two promising weather risk management strategies: geographical diversification and financial hedging. The empirical analysis results suggest that financial hedging might be a more effective strategy for ski conglomerates. Guidelines for ski conglomerates to achieve better weather risk management outcomes are provided based on simulating the interactions between geographical diversification and financial hedging. Although based on ski resorts and snowfall risk, the methodology is also applicable to other weather sensitive hospitality businesses.     

Perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the U.S.: What affects customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions?

This study investigates American customers’ perceptions of Chinese restaurants in the U.S., using the Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) approach. This study also examines which attributes of Chinese restaurants influence American customers’ satisfaction and behavioral intentions. The IPA shows that environmental cleanliness and attentive service are two important areas where Chinese restaurateurs can make improvements. In addition, food taste and service reliability appear to be key attributes for Chinese restaurants’ success. Overall, this study indicates that food quality, service reliability and environmental cleanliness are three pivotal attributes to create satisfied customers and positive post-dining behavioral intentions. Chinese restaurant managers should reasonably allocate their limited resources to restaurant attributes based on their contributions to customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions.     

Acquisitions and the Information Environment of Firms

This paper investigates how acquisitions affect analyst following of firms. Analyst following increases as a result of a merger. However, all of that increase can be attributed to the changes in firm-specific characteristics resulting from the merger. Changes in analyst following around mergers are positively related to changes in firm size, expenditures on R&D, and the ratio of book to the market value of equity. Finally, the relatedness of merger appears to be an important determinant of analyst following of firms engaged in acquisitions.     

TRADING COSTS OF NON‐U.S. STOCKS ON THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE: THE EFFECT OF INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP,ANALYST FOLLOWING,AND MARKET REGULATION

We investigate the differences in market microstructure between U.S. and non‐U.S. stocks cross‐listed on the New York Stock Exchange using a sample of 316 pairs of matched stocks. We find that non‐U.S. stocks have wider spreads and larger adverse‐selection costs than U.S. stocks even after controlling for macro‐level institutional differences. Regression analysis shows that spreads and adverse‐selection costs are negatively correlated with institutional ownership and analyst followings. Thus, the higher spreads and adverse‐selection costs for non‐U.S. stocks can be partly explained by the lower institutional ownership and analyst following of non‐U.S. stocks. In addition, we find that although the spreads and adverse‐selection costs for non‐U.S. stocks are significantly higher before the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), the differences become even greater after Regulation FD, suggesting that Regulation FD has improved the information environment for U.S. stocks.     

Revisit to the determinants of capital structure: A comparison between lodging firms and software firms

This study validates the contradiction between capital structure theories and previous empirical studies, and it further identifies lodging firms’ unique leverage behavior through a comparison to software firms, using a generalized least squares analysis. This study also explores the joint effects of key financial leverage determinants. The findings indicate that fixed assets, growth opportunities, and the joint effect of these two variables are the significant long-term debt determinants of the lodging industry. The analysis of the joint effect also suggests that fixed assets and growth opportunities affect each other's relationship with long-term debt usage. With the findings on lodging firms’ unique financing rationale, authors hope to provide useful information for corporate financial planners and lending institutions regarding debt-financing behavior.