An Inside‐Out Marketing Strategy for Innovation among Human Service Nonprofits in South Korea

In the increasingly competitive nonprofit market, innovation may be the only choice for survival among human service nonprofits. Considering the importance of service encounters and high dependence on human resources, internal marketing has potential as a management strategy to improve innovative activities in human service nonprofits. To examine the effect of internal marketing strategy focusing on employees, this study investigates the mediating effect of customer orientation in the pathway from internal marketing to innovation. The findings from 258 community‐based social service centers in South Korea support the positive impact of internal marketing on customer orientation and innovation, although the significant evidence for the mediating effect of customer orientation is not found. The current study suggests implications for practice and future research.     

High-dimensional Markowitz portfolio optimization problem: empirical comparison of covariance matrix estimators

We compare the performance of recently developed regularized covariance matrix estimators for Markowitz's portfolio optimization and of the minimum variance portfolio (MVP) problem in particular. We focus on seven estimators that are applied to the MVP problem in the literature; three regularize the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix, and the other four assume the sparsity of the true covariance matrix or its inverse. Comparisons are made with two sets of long-term S&P 500 stock return data that represent two extreme scenarios of active and passive management. The results show that the MVPs with sparse covariance estimators have high Sharpe ratios but that the naive diversification (also known as the ‘uniform (on market share) portfolio’) still performs well in terms of wealth growth.     

Euler(p,q) Processes and Their Application to Non Stationary Time Series with Time Varying Frequencies

We introduce Euler(p, q) processes as an extension of the Euler(p) processes for purposes of obtaining more parsimonious models for non stationary processes whose periodic behavior changes approximately linearly in time. The discrete Euler(p, q) models are a class of multiplicative stationary (M-stationary) processes and basic properties are derived. The relationship between continuous and discrete mixed Euler processes is shown. Fundamental to the theory and application of Euler(p, q) processes is a dual relationship between discrete Euler(p, q) processes and ARMA processes, which is established. The usefulness of Euler(p, q) processes is examined by comparing spectral estimation with that obtained by existing methods using both simulated and real data.     

Those Who are Left Behind: An Estimate of the Number of Family Members of Suicide Victims in Japan

This paper contributes to the literature of suicide studies by presenting procedures and its estimates of the number of family members who lose their loved ones to suicide. Using Japanese aggregate level data, three main findings emerge: first, there are approximately five bereaved family members per suicide; second, in 2006, there were about 90,000 children who had lost a parent to suicide; and third, in 2006, there were about three million living family members who had lost a loved one to suicide. The direct production loss of bereaved family members in 2006 alone is estimated at approximately 197 million USD. These results are valuable in evaluating the cost-effectiveness of suicide prevention programs and in designing appropriate policy instruments.     

Simulating the average run length for cusum schemes using variance reduction techniques

Some variance reduction techniques utilizing the total hazard are developed to estimate the average run lengths of the cumulative sum charts through simulation when the process follows a general probability distribution. Particularly, we propose the hazard estimator and the cycle estimator. Simulation results are shown for the exponential case and these estimators are compared with the raw simulation estimator. Applicability to multivariate CUSUM schemes is briefly discussed in the conclusion.     

DISCONTINUITY OF OUTPUT CONVERGENCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATES: WHY HAS THE COURSE CHANGED?

Has the progress of output convergence changed within the United States? This article examines the output convergence among U.S. states for the last five decades by making several improvements over the extant literature. By applying a battery of convergence tests designed to capture nonlinear transitional dynamics to real output per worker data (i.e., nominal values deflated by state‐level price), we find that output convergence has not been a feature of the continental United States since the 1970s. Instead, output convergence has proceeded among four subgroups within which constituent states have certain characteristics in common. Our regression analysis suggests that state‐level characteristics related to technology and human capital play a crucial role in accounting for the formation and composition of convergence clubs, in agreement with the recent theoretical models of growth and development (e.g., Aghion et al. 2009; Gennaioli et al. 2013b). The level of technology, proxied by patents, turns out to be a consistently significant determinant even after controlling for endogeneity, suggesting that frictions in the diffusion of technology and human capital may have led to clustering of states with different levels of productivity. Our results therefore cast doubt on the common view that diffusion of knowledge and technology across state borders is frictionless. (JEL O47, O51)