State dependence,individual heterogeneity,and the choice of employment status: evidence from Korea

Focusing on the individual heterogeneity, this article examines the causes of an individual’s employment status choice and the extent of state dependence in the Korean labour market. We estimate a dynamic multinomial logit model using the panel data drawn from the first to fifteenth wave of the Korean Labour and Income Panel Study. The results suggest the presence of state dependence. Individual characteristics and growth background have a significant effect on the choice of employment status. Gender is still an important employment factor; males are more likely to be employed and this gender effect is highest for regular employment (RE). One’s educational attainment and age operate in opposite directions. That is, educational attainment (age) has a positive (negative) impact on the choice of a regular job and a negative (positive) impact on the choice of a non-regular job. Contrary to our expectations, a wealthy family background reduces the probability of individuals being wage workers, and raises the probability of them being unemployed. The barriers to RE are greater than for non-regular employment. These findings are of great importance for designing policies to effectively address unemployment and labour informality problems in Korea.     

Relating ultrasonic vocalizations from a pair of rats to individual behavior: A composite link model approach

Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are crucial in the social behavior of rats. We aim to relate USV rates of pairs of rats to individual activity in an automated home cage (PhenoTyper®) where USVs are recorded per pair and not per individual. We propose a composite link model approach to parametrize a mechanistic “sum‐of‐rates” model in which the pair's USV rate is the sum of the USV rates of individuals depending on their own behavior. In generalized linear models (GLMs), the individual's USV rates are multiplied. We verified through simulation that composite link model gave lower Poisson deviance than GLM. We analyzed the data from an experiment in which half of the cages did allow the pairs to interact (Pair Housing) and the other half did not (Individual Housing). The “sum‐of‐rates” model fits best for Individual Housing and GLM for Pair Housing. An additional simulation study strongly suggests that interaction between rats changes the underlying mechanism for vocalization behavior.     

Geopolitical risks and recessions in a panel of advanced economies: evidence from over a century of data

This paper uses a panel of 17 advanced countries over the annual period of 1899–2013, to analyze for the first time, the role played by geopolitical risks in predicting recessions. After controlling for other standard predictors based on a logit model, we find that while aggregate geopolitical risks do not have any predictive ability, geopolitical acts enhance the probability of future recessions, with geopolitical threats reducing the same.     

The decision-making process of and the decisive factors in accommodation choice

This study examines tourists’ decision-making process of and highlights the decisive factors in accommodation choice, employing the discrete choice (multinomial logit and nested logit) models and using the international tourist data of Taiwan. The results of this study may be indicative of the hierarchical nature of tourists’ decision-making process of accommodation choice. In addition, we find that price is a significant factor in accommodation choice, whereas income has only limited explanatory power. The results also indicate that tourists with a longer length of stay tend to choose hotels of lower quality, and, in contrast, elder people prefer better accommodations.     

MARKET STRUCTURE AND PRICING STRATEGY OF CHINA'S AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY*

In this study, using market‐level data on quantities, prices' and automobile characteristics from 1995 to 2001, we conduct a market analysis of the Chinese automobile industry under imperfect competition. On the demand side, we apply a nested multinomial logit model to the national market share data in order to ascertain the demand features of China's automobile market. On the supply side, we assume Bertrand behavior to uncover the markups set by automobile manufacturers. Our empirical results suggest that some large automobile manufacturers set high markups, indicating their strong market power in China's automobile market. However, their declining markups in the late 1990's imply a reduction in market control by the major producers.     

Delisted versus voluntary delisted versus remain listed: financial disclosure timing

We focus in the period of announcement of accounting information for companies listed in an organized market and we re-examine their probability of delisting, voluntarily or not. Adopting the same framework, consideration is given to the assumption that investors utilize market information when accounting data are published. The analysis provided indicates that investors should pay attention to the financial disclosure timing. Our investigation demonstrated that even the short period of three months is quite important to making investment decisions.     

空地数据链路研究

本文介绍了一种作用距离远、信息量大且实时性要求高的数据传输链路方案，通过同步卫星中继，预计能达到2Mbps的数据传输率，误码率为10^-6。     

Quality Measurement in Professional Services Firms

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the association between service quality as perceived by consumers and its determinants. In particular, the SERVQUAL instrument is discussed and then it is demonstrated how it can be adapted 1.0 fit the needs of small professional services firms using a CPA firm as an example. The entire analysis can be performed with a spreadsheet package and the results are easy to interpret. The results are presented and the managerial implications are discussed.     

Do natural disasters increase the likelihood that a government is replaced?

We examine the impact of natural disasters on the likelihood that a government is removed from office using panel data for 156 countries over the period 1975–2010. Employing a conditional logit model, we find that the occurrence of natural disasters, the number of natural disasters and disaster-related losses increase the chances that a government will be replaced. The magnitudes of these effects differ widely across natural disaster types, but are robust to the inclusion of economic and political variables and to model specifications. Overall, these findings are consistent across our sample of OECD and non-OECD countries.     

REGIONAL VARIATION IN LIVELIHOOD STRATEGIES IN MALAWI

We identified livelihood strategies at the household level as a function of assets held using survey data from Malawi. We only included endowments that we expected to be predetermined. As expected, land, household size, age and primary education are important determinants of livelihood strategies. It also turned out to be significant regional variation in livelihood strategies, with more diversification in the southern region, and with regional variation in the role of ethnic and religious identity as determinants of livelihood strategies. In particular, we found that households from the Chewa community have more livelihood opportunities in the south, where they are in a minority.