Modeling an early warning system for household debt risk in Korea: A simple deep learning approach

We construct an early warning indicator for household debt risk by analyzing the relationship between household debt and certain important macroeconomic determinants using a simple deep learning approach. A precise and informative indicator can help inform economic policies, especially in light of the recent growth in the ratio of household debt to income. Although several studies have analyzed the determinants of the household debt crisis, very few have examined early warning indicators for household debt risk. Some studies suggest that a situation can be regarded as a crisis if the household debt ratio is greater than 50% or 85%. However, as the household debt ratio in Korea is already over this threshold, this criterion is neither informative nor useful. Accordingly, we propose a transformed index that addresses long-term memory characteristics. Moreover, five categories for the degree of household debt crisis are considered instead of the binary variable that has been frequently used in previous studies. Furthermore, we use a well-known deep learning approach to find a non-linear relationship between crisis indices and many factors. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed early warning indicator explains the household debt crisis quite well.     

Formula feeding: Evidence for health,nutrition and early childhood development during the critical first 1000 days from rural China

Infant and young child feeding is crucial to physical and mental development and long-term health. In developing settings, the widespread use of formula raises concerns regarding the growth and development of infants. However, little is known about the role that formula may play in the observed poor infant health, nutrition and development in developing areas. Using a rich panel dataset of 1802 infants aged 6–30 months collected at six months intervals from rural China, we describe the prevalence of formula feeding, identify households that are more likely to use formula, and examine the associations between formula feeding with various dimensions of infant health, nutrition and development outcomes: anthropometric measurements, infant illnesses, cognitive, psychomotor, and socio-emotional development. We found infant formula is widely used in rural China, and it is significantly associated with infant health and nutritional outcomes - formula feeding is associated with a 4.59-point increase in Hemoglobin concentration and a 13% reduction in anemia prevalence, but is also associated with a 0.11-sd decrease in weight-for-age and height-for-age Z-scores. Moreover, infants are more likely to be fed formula when their families have higher socioeconomic status, when their parents have out-migrated, and when they have no siblings. Our findings suggest that there is a need to promote age-appropriate feeding practices, with an emphasis on families who are particularly in need of guidance, to reduce over-reliance on formula, and provide support for mothers to delay their migration or create pathways for rural parents to bring their children with them when they migrate.     

Early internationalization and subsequent geographic expansion: An extended Penrosean perspective

Internationalization is, by nature, a dynamic and continuous process that unfolds over time. However, the extant literature on international entrepreneurship primarily focuses on the antecedents that influence the initiation of internationalization and downplays its post-entry process. Specifically, little research has examined how early internationalization relates to subsequent geographic expansion. To bridge this gap, we draw upon Penrose’s theory of firm growth and a judgment-based view of entrepreneurship. We posit that earlier resource commitment to foreign countries enables entrepreneurs to quickly start managerial learning based on their experience of experimentation activities in foreign markets, facilitating entry into new foreign markets. Especially, we hypothesize that the operational experience acquired through earlier foreign direct investment is positively associated with subsequent geographic expansion, and the location where to accumulate operational experience moderates the association. The results of our longitudinal 19-year (2000–2018) study on 75 Japanese early internationalizing firms provide evidence for our hypotheses.