The Quality of Korean Life in Camparative Perspective: Objective Quality of Life in Korea and the OECD Countries

Social Indicators Research - This study attempts to compare the current state of Korea's quality of life with that of more developed countries in their past, and seeks to derive suggestions for...     

Measuring the impact of prices on inequality: With applications to Thailand and Korea

This paper develops a new methodology to compute social cost of living indices. These indices indicate whether or not price changes have a favourable (or unfavourable) impact on the welfare of the poor. The indices are derived on the basis of two alternative classes of social welfare functions. The methodology developed in the paper is applied to compute social cost of living indices for Thailand and Korea. The empirical results show that changes in prices have generally affected the poor more adversely than the non-poor.     

Can Japan Become “A Society Attractive for Immigrants?” Identity,Gender and Nation‐States under Globalization in East Asia

Abstract: In 2003, the total fertility rate in Japan was 1.29. According to many predictions, if the current rate continues, the labor shortage will become critical. The Economic and Fiscal Policy White Paper, edited by the Cabinet Office ( Naikakuhu, 2003a ), stated “If we attempt to fill the lack by accepting immigrants in order to maintain the population of productive workers, we will need to accept 640 000 immigrants every year until 2050. It is necessary to make our country more attractive for foreign workers”. However, it is unlikely that more than 30 million immigrants will choose to live in Japan unless efforts are made to abolish xenophobia and to make qualitative changes that will change Japanese society so that it is more open to co‐existence. Moreover, Japan is not the only country that must worry about future declines in the work force and other countries will most likely start to attract foreign workers earlier than Japan ( Naikakuhu, 2003b ).     

SAMUELSON'S DICTUM AND THE STOCK MARKET

Samuelson has offered the dictum that the stock market is "micro efficient" but "macro inefficient." That is, the efficient markets hypothesis works much better for individual stocks than it does for the aggregate stock market. In this article, we review a strand of evidence in recent literature that supports Samuelson's dictum and present one simple test, based on a regression and a simple scatter diagram, that vividly illustrates the truth in Samuelson's dictum for the U.S. stock market data since 1926.(JEL G14 )     

Analysis of overdispersed paired count data

This article is about the statistical analysis of overdispersed paired count data for comparing two treatments. The data consist of the number of events obtained in a stratum during the fixed observation period. Three types of model are discussed: the Poisson, a mixed, and a semiparametric model. Overdispersion is represented in the last two models but not in the Poisson model. Of particular interests are to examine whether there is any loss of efficiency in using the estimate of the treatment effect obtained under other two models if the mixed model is true, and also whether overdispersion leads to a larger variance of the estimate than that expected from the Poisson model. It is shown that all three models provide the same estimate of the treatment effect (i.e., there is no loss of efficiency) and that the variance of the estimate of the treatment effect obtained under the Poisson model is the same as that based on the mixed model. However, the semiparametric model provides the variance of the estimate larger than those obtained under the other two models.     

Bayesian multiple comparison of models for binary data with inequality constraints

In this paper we consider generalized linear models for binary data subject to inequality constraints on the regression coefficients, and propose a simple and efficient Bayesian method for parameter estimation and model selection by using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). In implementing MCMC, we introduce appropriate latent variables and use a simple approximation of a link function, to resolve computational difficulties and obtain convenient forms for full conditional posterior densities of elements of parameters. Bayes factors are computed via the Savage-Dickey density ratios and the method of Oh (Comput. Stat. Data Anal. 29:411–427, 1999), for which posterior samples from the full model with no degenerate parameter and the full conditional posterior densities of elements are needed. Since it uses one set of posterior samples from the full model for any model in consideration, it performs simultaneous comparison of all possible models and is very efficient compared with other model selection methods which require one to fit all candidate models. A simulation study shows that significant improvements can be made by taking the constraints into account. Real data on purchase intention of a product subject to order constraints is analyzed by using the proposed method. The analysis results show that there exist some price changes which significantly affect the consumer behavior. The results also show the importance of simultaneous comparison of models rather than separate pairwise comparisons of models since the latter may yield misleading results from ignoring possible correlations between parameters.     

A mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes prior for Bayesian analysis of event history data

In this paper, we propose a mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes as a nonparametric prior for the cumulative intensity functions of a Markov process. This family of priors is a natural extension of a mixture of Dirichlet processes or a mixture of beta processes which are devised to compromise advantages of parametric and nonparametric approaches. They give most of their prior mass to the small neighborhood of a specific parametric model. We show that a mixture of beta–Dirichlet processes prior is conjugate with Markov processes. Formulas for computing the posterior distribution are derived. Finally, results of analyzing credit history data are given.     

Penalties and payoffs: The short-term economic consequences of human capital acquisition for resettled refugees in the United States

The relationship between refugee investments in human capital and short-run economic outcomes may influence the extent to which refugees invest in human capital that is associated with positive future economic mobility. Using data from the Annual Survey of Refugees from 2016 and 2017 we assess the relationship between recent investments in human capital and hourly wages for employed refugees in the United States. Results suggest that recent job training has a positive effect on hourly wages. In contrast, enrollment in English classes and educational programmes have no short-term positive effects on hourly wages. When combined with the pressure resettled refugees experience to find employment quickly, these results suggest that the lack of short-term wage benefits from English language or educational courses may dissuade refugees from sufficiently investing in the amount of English language or education necessary to promote positive long-term economic mobility.