Factors influencing ‘missing girls’ in South Korea

Despite the massive attention drawn to ‘missing girls,’ there has been no study that specifically focuses on the association between childlessness and the daughter deficit. Using a bivariate probit selection model, this article analysed the data for 6475 married women aged 15–49 years collected from the 2003 Korea National Fertility and Family Health Survey. The results showed that a couple's decision to have a child exerted a significant influence on its daughter deficit. This study also found that the effect of a woman's education on daughter deficit did not correspond to that of her husband's level of education. Additionally, a prediction was made that if a one child family norm were prevailing in South Korea, the probability of a couple's having a daughter deficit would increase by as much as 63.9%.     

Assessment of behavioural outcomes of financial education workshops on financial behaviour of the participants: An experimental study

The present study attempts to evaluate the behavioural outcomes of financial education workshops on the financial behaviour of participants (homemakers) in the state of Gujarat, India. A series of financial education workshops were conducted for 300 homemakers in November–December 2012. A pre- and post-survey design was used. In the pre-survey, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire before they were invited to attend the financial education workshops. The follow-up survey data were collected 3 months after completion of the workshops. The effect of the financial education workshops on the financial behaviour of participants was assessed using 22 variables of financial behaviour, including cash, credit, saving and investment behaviour. The data were analysed using paired t-tests. The study finds that there is a positive effect of financial education workshops on the financial behaviour of participants. Specific findings may help financial education providers to design and implement such programmes more effectively and may provide guidelines to assess their impact.     

Divisional Informativeness Gap and Value Creation from Asset Sales

Nanda and Narayanan (1999) show that the information asymmetry between the managers and market participants regarding divisional cash flows helps explain the value creation on asset sales. Based on their theoretical framework, the divisional informativeness gap hypothesis predicts that the announcement‐period return increases with the difference in cash‐flow informativeness of retained and divested divisions prior to the divestiture. Our results, using industry‐average earnings response coefficient as a proxy for cash‐flow informativeness of a division, support this prediction. The effect is stronger when a conglomerate retains the division with relatively greater growth opportunities.     

Capital Inflows and House Prices: Aggregate and Regional Evidence from China

Rising house prices in China have been of concern for investors and policymakers. Prices have risen substantially in the last decade, especially in large urban cities, and some economists have expressed concerns about the affordability of residential housing for young adults. This phenomenon becomes a major concern for policymakers, in terms of managing policies to balance the residential needs of individuals and the transition to a market economy. Theoretically, house prices ought to be linked to economic factors such as disposable income, availability of land to build and credit policy. However, it appears that traditional economic theories fail to appropriately explain house prices in China. We provide an explanation from the perspective of capital inflows into China. In terms of per capita remittances, China receives the highest inflow of foreign capital, and this may have a significant impact on risk adjusted returns in the Chinese market. To investigate this relationship, we use the vector error correction model to assess the impact of capital inflows on house prices. We find that capital inflows have a significant positive effect on house prices. The study makes important contributions to understanding the relationship between house prices and foreign remittances after controlling for other economic factors. China is a large economy. Because the impact of economic development in China has not been consistent across the country, we address the regional differences in the house price changes to capital inflows. Using regional data, we show that capital inflows have an asymmetric effect on the housing market across different provinces and cities of China. This has important implications for the development of economic policies in China that aim to provide fair access to residential housing for everyone. These findings are also relevant to investors in the housing market, whether investing for a personal residential home or as part of their diversified investment portfolio. It will also be informative to see how a reversal of capital inflows associated with tighter financing conditions in advanced countries will affect house prices in China.     

Role of monetary policy in a New Keynesian economy: a note from a laboratory experiment

This paper discusses an experimental study on the role of monetary policy within a New Keynesian macroeconomic framework. The novelty of this article is that each subject was asked to forecast both the inflation rate and output gap at the same time one period ahead, which is an improvement over the existing literature. We find that if both the expected inflation rate and expected output gap is incorporated in the monetary policy rule then inflation can be anchored and stabilized more efficiently.     

Reconsidering the welfare cost of inflation in the US: a nonparametric estimation of the nonlinear long-run money-demand equation using projection pursuit regressions

This paper, first, estimates the appropriate, log–log or semi-log, linear long-run money-demand relationship capturing the behavior US money demand over the period of 1980:Q1–2010:Q4, using the standard linear cointegration procedures found in the literature, and the corresponding nonparametric version of the same based on projection pursuit regression (PPR) methods. We then, compare the resulting welfare costs of inflation obtained from the linear and nonlinear money-demand cointegrating equations. We make the following observations: (i) the appropriate money-demand relationship for the period of 1980:Q1–2010:Q4 is captured by a semi-log function; (ii) based on the estimation of semi-log cointegrating equations, the welfare cost of inflation was found to at the most lie between 0.0131 % of GDP and 0.2186 % of GDP for inflation rates between 0 and 10 %, and; (iii) in comparison, the welfare cost of inflation obtained from the semi-log non-linear long-run money-demand function, derived using the PPR method, for 0–10 % of inflation ranges between 0.4930 and 1.9468 % of GDP. However, the standard errors associated with the welfare cost estimates obtained from PPR relative to the linear models tend to indicate that the nonlinear money demand provides more precise estimates of the welfare costs primarily for higher rates of inflation.     

Analysing customers' reviews and ratings for online food deliveries: A text mining approach

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between online reviews and ratings through text mining and empirical techniques. An Indian food delivery portal ( Zomato.com ) was used, where 50 restaurants on Presence Across Nation (PAN) basis were selected through stratified random sampling. A total of 2530 reviews were collected, scrutinized, and analysed. Using the NVivo software for qualitative analysis, seven themes were identified from collected reviews, out of which, the ‘delivery’ theme was explored further for identifying sub-themes. Linear regression modelling was used to identify the variables affecting delivery ratings and sentiment analysis was also performed on the identified sub-themes. Regression results revealed that hygiene and pricing (delivery subthemes) demonstrated lower delivery ratings. These variables can be established as indicators for restaurants and related online food delivery services to build their business model around them. Similarly, negative sentiments were observed in pricing and hygiene sub-themes. Restaurants and online food services can enhance hygiene levels of their food delivery process in order to receive higher delivery ratings. Similarly, pricing of food items can be modified such that customers are not deterred from ordering the items—food and ordering service do not become cost-prohibitive. This study devised a standardized methodology for analysing vast amounts of online user-generated content (UGC). Findings from this study can be extrapolated to other sectors and service industries such as, tourism, cleaning, transportation, hospitals and engineering especially during the pandemic.     

A new theoretical framework of shopping motives and channel preference behaviour in the digital era

The unprecedented dissemination of digital technology has changed people's psychology including their shopping behaviour in the last two decades. Smartphone led digital applications and advancements have disrupted consumers' shopping processes, purchase decisions, and priorities as well as increased their exposure, aspirations and expectations inevitably. Therefore, it is imperative to examine the relevance of various elements of shopping motives holistically. Therefore, the present study aims to develop a new theoretical framework based on significant elements of shopping motives for physical products in the digital technology era. For this purpose, an exploratory study, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used. EFA generated five latent factors by grouping 18 independent variables. CFA validated latent factor construct and measured model fit. SEM visualized the path analysis and portrayed the pattern of relations between latent factors into a single factor structural model (consumer shopping motives framework). Results show that consumers' shopping priorities are changing as 3 conventional variables (‘role-playing’, ‘status and authority’, and ‘pleasure of bargaining’) became obsolete and 3 new (‘anywhere and any-time shopping’, ‘safe and secure digital transaction’, and ‘unbiased reviews and ratings”) came into existence prominently. The format and perspective of ‘fun, entertainment and recreation’ ‘social interaction and communication’, and ‘exposure to new and latest trends' have been changing. Consumers are becoming more technology-dependent in their shopping processes and purchase decisions. The validation of the framework on channel preference behaviour revealed that consumers largely prefer offline channels for the fulfilment of risk-free and social sub-motives, and online channels for convenience sub-motive. Therefore, broad structural change and clarity, specification of priorities, a shift in the format and perspective of few elements of shopping motives, intrinsic passion for the use of digital technology and web service in the shopping journey, and simplification of antecedents for growing popularity of multi-channel shopping paradigm are the key novelty of this study.