Asian Economic Journal最新文献

We examined whether the elasticities of Korean exports with respect to global GDP and to the exchange rate vary depending on exports’ expansionary or contractionary regimes. Our empirical analysis incorporated regime changes and cointegration into a multivariable smooth transition autoregressive vector error correction model. Our estimation results revealed asymmetries in the short-run elasticities of Korea's exports between the two regimes, although their long-run elasticities remain stable. The positive effect of global GDP on Korea's exports is inelastic during contractionary regimes but elastic in expansionary regimes. The effect of home currency appreciation is negative and elastic under expansionary regimes but positive and inelastic under contractionary regimes.

Using a panel dataset for the period of 1991–2001, the present paper explores the significant determinants that indicate the likelihood of bankruptcy for chaebol and non-chaebol firms in Korea, and identifies the differences in the determinants between the two types of firms, with an emphasis on their ownership and financial structures. Logit bankruptcy regressions show that largest shareholder ownership (i.e. ownership concentration) is likely to act as a corporate governance mechanism in reducing bankruptcy risk and that financial stability, operating experience and firm size are also important. In separate regressions for chaebol and non-chaebol firms, foreign ownership for chaebol firms and ownership concentration for non-chaebol firms emerge as significantly positive and negative bankruptcy determinants, respectively. In particular, bank ownership is identified as a positive factor for chaebol firms and a negative factor for non-chaebol firms. These outcomes suggest that ownership concentration and bank ownership are likely to play a monitoring role in lowering bankruptcy risk for non-chaebol firms. Outcomes from more elaborate estimations also suggest that overall, bank ownership enhances the monitoring role as a substitute for low foreign ownership.

Laos has the highest maternal mortality rate in Southeast Asia. The present study examines antenatal care and birth location in relation to the residence, household education levels, wealth, ethnicity, age and media interest of pregnant women. The logit and OLS regression results show that pregnant women living in urban areas and rural areas with roads, from wealthy families, in the Lao ethnic group and in the young age group are more likely to receive antenatal care and have professional health workers deliver their children. Therefore, greater governmental efforts are required to make antenatal care available to all pregnant women.

There is a continuing debate on the measurement of living standards, especially in developing countries. The proliferation of social indicators in recent decades, motivated by both philosophical and pragmatic empirical considerations, has been illuminating. However, it has also led to some confusion: which indicator or set of indicators should be used? The most widely used indicator continues to be headcount poverty, or some refined variant of it. However, what of the many other indicators and, importantly, do they portray a similar picture? We illustrate these issues with reference to the Indonesian experience over several decades. Indonesia has experienced moderately fast economic growth since the late 1960s and, as a consequence, headcount poverty has fallen rapidly. Most other social indicators have also improved. However, the rate of progress has varied, from similarly rapid improvement to stagnation and in one instance, environmental amenities, to regression.

There has been a perennial debate on why the informal economy exists and grows in developing countries around the world. The present study focuses on the case of Thailand, one of the countries with the highest share of informal activities, to clarify whether its informal workers participate in the informal sector voluntarily or involuntarily. The confirmation matters for the design of government policies and public welfare. We separated the study into two levels. First, at the national level, we used the finite mixture model to examine the 2010 Population and Housing Census and estimate the wage equations for formal, voluntary informal and involuntary informal workers. Second, we focused on a local area for the case of Chiang Mai city, where we surveyed a sample of 393 informal business owners to understand their decision to participate in the informal sector. From both levels of study, we found heterogeneity among the informal workers, who could be classified into voluntary and involuntary groups. While those in the voluntary group stay in the informal sector because workers prefer time flexibility, those in the involuntary group stay because of family burdens. Both levels of data also showed that the Thai informal sector is dominated by the voluntary group (>70 percent).

This study examined the difference between male and female groups’ return on investment (ROI) in education independent of the average gender wage gap. Women’s additional ROI in education was significant and positively estimated. Furthermore, the ROI in women’s education was consistently higher than that in men regardless of educational stage, except for graduate education. These gender differences were greater in the younger generation than in the older generation and have decreased significantly in the recent ten years in high school education. Although the additional ROI in women’s education was positive in the field of culture and arts, education’s effect on wage increases in professional occupations was less than in men, especially in the fields of law and medicine. In addition, we show that gender differences in ROI in education were countercyclical. A base effect, large wage declines for low-educated women during recessions, could explain this phenomenon. However, coinciding with the existence of positive cash flow news in the stock market that promises good business performance, a significant wage increase among highly educated women was found.

In this paper, we investigated the economic effects of zoning regulations on the retail industry in Korea. We estimated the changes in the number of sales for retail stores using a panel regression analysis for stores in traditional markets. This analysis was conducted to examine the benefit of zoning regulations on retail stores. Our results show that the zoning regulations (called Traditional Commercial Activity Protection Zones) have contributed to an improvement in the actual business performance of small independent retailers. We found that the amount of sales for each store clearly increased on average in the areas designated as Traditional Commercial Activity Protection Zones where there was no market entry of mega supermarket chains (called SSM in Korea). We also present evidence that the effects of this policy differ geographically: the effects were stronger for small and medium cities than for large metropolitan cities. These results suggest that zoning regulations enacted by the government to protect traditional markets and small retailers should also consider regional differences when assessing policy effectiveness.

The total amount of Japan's local government (LG) expenditures exceeds its central government (CG) expenditures. Japan's LG and CG are responsible for the worst general government's debt situation among the G7 countries. The paper elucidated the fiscal reactions of Japan's prefecture governments (PGs) based on Bohn's (1998a, 2005) method with a panel dataset (44PGs, fiscal years 1974–2016), addressing nonstationary and endogeneity issues. In my model, a positive reaction of the primary surplus/gross regional product (GRP) ratio to the PG debt/GRP ratio (d) constitutes a sufficient condition for sustainability. The results of the study demonstrate the following: (i) the PG in any fiscal condition are assumed to provide sustainable fiscal management; (ii) the PGs in sounder or more dire fiscal conditions probably manage their finances more firmly; (iii) the fiscal transfers from the CG generally ease the PG fiscal conditions; (iv) although primary regressors d and dsq (the square of d) are assumed to be I (1) with some accuracy, they become stationary through cointegration with other regressors.