Decomposition of Changes in Korean Wage Inequality, 1998–2007

South Korea experienced a steep increase in wage inequality between the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the global financial crisis in 2008. This paper investigates the causes of the sharp change during that time period by looking at the contributions of changes in the distributions of schooling and unionization. The effects are estimated applying two robust distributional function based decomposition methods on Korean Labor and Panel Survey data for the time period 1998–2007. The results suggest changes in the distribution of schooling can explain about 10 % of the changes in the 90/50 percentile wage gap. The declining unionization rate does not have much impact on the upward trend of Korean wage inequality. In addition, aggregate decomposition results suggest that changes in labor force composition can explain a significant proportion of the total wage changes in the upper-tail of the distribution. Based on our findings we provide a list of policy recommendations to address the wage inequality issue in Korea.     

Provision of a Wildfire Risk Map: Informing Residents in the Wildland Urban Interface

Wildfires in the wildland urban interface (WUI) are an increasing concern throughout the western United States and elsewhere. WUI communities continue to grow and thus increase the wildfire risk to human lives and property. Information such as a wildfire risk map can inform WUI residents of potential risks and may help to efficiently sort mitigation efforts. This study uses the survey-based contingent valuation (CV) method to examine annual household willingness to pay (WTP) for the provision of a wildfire risk map. Data were collected through a mail survey of the East Mountain WUI area in the State of New Mexico (USA). The integrated empirical approach includes a system of equations that involves joint estimation of WTP values, along with measures of a respondent's risk perception and risk mitigation behavior. The median estimated WTP is around U.S. $12 for the annual wildfire risk map, which covers at least the costs of producing and distributing available risk information. Further, providing a wildfire risk map can help address policy goals emphasizing information gathering and sharing among stakeholders to mitigate the effects of wildfires.     

Understanding Household Preferences for Hurricane Risk Mitigation Information: Evidence from Survey Responses

Risk information is critical to adopting mitigation measures, and seeking risk information is influenced by a variety of factors. An essential component of the recently adopted My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program by the State of Florida is to provide homeowners with pertinent risk information to facilitate hurricane risk mitigation activities. We develop an analytical framework to understand household preferences for hurricane risk mitigation information through allowing an intensive home inspection. An empirical analysis is used to identify major drivers of household preferences to receive personalized information regarding recommended hurricane risk mitigation measures. A variety of empirical specifications show that households with home insurance, prior experience with damages, and with a higher sense of vulnerability to be affected by hurricanes are more likely to allow inspection to seek information. However, households with more members living in the home and households who live in manufactured/mobile homes are less likely to allow inspection. While findings imply MSFH program's ability to link incentives offered by private and public agencies in promoting mitigation, households that face a disproportionately higher level of risk can get priority to make the program more effective.     

Box–Cox power transformation unconditional quantile regressions with an application on wage inequality

This study proposes a semi-parametric estimation method, Box–Cox power transformation unconditional quantile regression, to estimate the impact of changes in the distribution of the explanatory variables on the unconditional quantile of the outcome variable. The proposed method consists of running a nonlinear regression of the recentered influence function (RIF) of the outcome variable on the explanatory variables. We also show the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator and apply the estimation method to address an existing puzzle in labor economics–why the 50th/10th percentile wage gap has been falling in the USA since the late 1980s. Our results show that declining unionization can explain approximately 10% of the decline in the 50/10 wage gap in 1990–2000 and 23% in 2000–2010.     

Women’s status and domestic violence in rural Bangladesh: Individual- and community-level effects

We explore the determinants of domestic violence in two rural areas of Bangladesh. We found increased education, higher socioeconomic status, non-Muslim religion, and extended family residence to be associated with lower risks of violence. The effects of women's status on violence was found to be highly context-specific. In the more culturally conservative area, higher individual-level women's autonomy and short-term membership in savings and credit groups were both associated with significantly elevated risks of violence, and community-level variables were unrelated to violence. In the less culturally conservative area, in contrast, individual-level women's status indicators were unrelated to the risk of violence, and community-level measures of women's status were associated with significantly lower risks of violence, presumably by reinforcing nascent normative changes in gender relations.     

Can Ethical Political Leadership Restore Public Trust in Political Leaders?

Public Organization Review - This article presents findings from a qualitative study (via in-depth interviews with 121 local political leaders from 65 local authorities in the UK) that aims to...