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We examine the incremental cross-sectional role of several common risk factors related to size, book-to-market, and momentum in size-and-momentum-sorted portfolios. Unlike the existing literature, which focuses on the conditional mean specification only, we evaluate the common risk factors’ incremental explanatory power in the cross-sectional characterization of both average return and conditional volatility. We also investigate the role of ex-ante market risk in the cross-section. The empirical results demonstrate that the size-and-momentum-based risk factors explain a significant portion of the cross-sectional average returns and cross-sectional conditional volatility of the benchmark equity portfolios. We find that the Fama–French (1993) factors and the ex-ante market risk are priced in the cross-sectional conditional volatility. We conclude that the size-and-momentum-based factors provide a source of risk that is independent of the Fama–French factors as well as ex-post and ex-ante market risk. Our results bolster the risk-based explanation of the size and momentum effects.

Previous studies have shown that stock returns bear a premium for downside risk versus upside potential. We develop a new risk measure which scales the traditional CAPM beta by the ratio of the upside beta to the downside beta, thereby incorporating the effects of both upside potential and downside risk. This “modified” beta has substantial explanatory power in standard asset pricing tests, outperforming existing measures, and it is robust to various alternative modeling and estimation techniques.

The 1997 financial crisis in Asia has entailed significant changes and governance reforms in the Korean banking industry. This study investigates the impact of corporate governance on the risk and return of Korean banks during the 10 years that followed the financial crisis era. In particular, we investigate the ownership structure of banks, the extent of involvement of foreign institutions and investors in ownership and board membership of Korean banks, and the heterogeneity of board structure on bank performance. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership, the extent of external board involvement, and the presence of foreign directors on the board are associated with significantly higher bank returns. Although foreign ownership and the number of outside board directors are associated with lower risk, the involvement of foreign board members is positively associated with risk. The results are fairly robust to a battery of tests and control variables, and offer the first detailed empirical documentation of the Korean banking governance reform and its achievements since 1997.

This chapter discusses how gender scholarship has transformed the study of immigration in the United States since the 1970s.

This discussion is based on a synthesized review of immigration studies and their connections to gender scholarship in different historical contexts.

Over the past four decades, gender scholarship has significantly shaped the theories, methodologies, and core concerns in immigration studies in the United States. Before the 1970s, immigration research focused on men. Studies of immigrant women began in the 1980s, which not only challenged previous gender-blind perspectives but also highlighted women’s unique experiences. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, the study of gender and immigration focused on immigrant women’s vulnerabilities in the global economy and enhancing women’s status at home through employment in the host society. Since the 1990s, more diverse topics have emerged to involve discussion on globalization and transnationalism. These gendering trends in immigration studies have not taken place in an intellectual vacuum. Rather, they have been influenced by developments in gender scholarship within different historical contexts.

To enrich gender-focused and feminism-informed research in immigration studies, scholars will have to build connections across subareas and engage in dialogues with each other. More immigrant groups must also be studied to reflect the extremely diverse make-up of current immigrants in the United States. Intersectional analyses are also needed to avoid homogenizing studied groups. Finally, mainstream immigration research must begin to perceive gender as an essential analytical framework.

Ramp meters in the Twin Cities were turned off for 8 weeks in the Fall of 2000. This paper analyzes traffic data collected in this experiment on travel time variability with and without ramp metering for several representative freeways during the afternoon peak period. Travel time variability is generally reduced with metering. However, it is found that ramp meters are particularly helpful for long trips relative to short trips. The annual benefits from reducing travel time variability with meters are estimated to be $33.1 million, compared to the annual ramp metering costs of $2.6 million in the Twin Cities metro area. Thus, the impact on travel time variability should be captured in future ramp metering benefit/cost analysis.

This chapter examines dynamic connectedness among emerging Asian equity markets as well as explores their linkages vis-à-vis other major global markets. We find that international equity markets are tightly integrated. Measuring connectedness based on a generalized Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model, more than half of all total forecast error variance in equity return and volatility shocks come from other markets as opposed to country own shocks. When examining the degree of connectedness over time, we find that international stock markets have become increasingly connected, with a gentle upward trend since the Asian financial crisis (AFC) but with a rapid burst during the global financial crisis (GFC). Despite the growing importance of Asian emerging markets in the world economy, we find that their influence on advanced economies are still relatively small, with no significant increase over time. During the past decade, advanced markets have been consistently net transmitters of shocks while emerging Asian markets act as net receivers. Based on the nature of equity shock spillovers, we also find that advanced countries are still tightly connected among themselves while intraregional connectedness within Asia remains strong. By investigating whether uncertainty plays an important role in explaining the degree of stock market connectedness, we find that economic policy uncertainty (EPU) from the US is an important source of financial shock spillover for the majority of international equity markets. In contrast, US financial market uncertainty as proxied by the VIX index drives equity market spillovers only among advanced economies.

This study investigates the structural relationships among humor leadership, psychological empowerment, innovative behavior, and job performance in the Korean hotel industry. This study reveals following key major findings. First, a leader’s use of humor in leadership significantly and positively influences an employee’s psychological empowerment. Second, an employee’s psychological empowerment significantly and positively influences innovative behavior and job performance. However, innovative behavior does not significantly influence job performance. In the final section, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

The aim of this study is to understand the determinants of relationship between banks and nonfinancial corporations within Poland (which are considered relationship banking from this point onward).

The main sources of data used in the study are the large credit database (credit register of the National Bank of Poland (NBP)) and other aggregated data, including data from the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the NBP. Econometric panel logit methods have been used to test how different factors affect bank–firm relationships. Three main groups of factors have been investigated: the characteristics of the firm (i.e., size, ownership type, and R&D activity); the characteristics of the financial sector (i.e., competition in the banking sector); and macroeconomic conditions.

The findings demonstrate that Polish firms readily establish single-bank relationships, and firms with the highest quality of credit portfolios borrow often from multiple creditors. All conducted estimations demonstrated that the relationship between financing from a single bank and from foreign capital had a positive sign. Also, a decrease in concentration in the banking sector, which may be identified with an increase in competition, supports the establishment of relationship banking.

The study was performed using the data from large exposure database collected for supervisory purposes. Exposures (credits, derivatives, etc.) larger than 500 thousand PLN (approx. 120 thousand EUR) were only considered. Future research on bank–firm relationships should focus on the influence of financing costs, maintaining relationships when the borrower is in a difficult financial position, and other unique features of banks using the strategy of relationship financing.

The understanding of the characteristics of bank–firm relationships can help to improve banking practice and supervisory policy in Poland.

This study makes a noticeable contribution to the understanding of the banking sector and its relationships with nonfinancial corporations in Poland. It is the first empirical study on such a large sample of panel data from Polish banking sector and industries, too.

Coffee shops are becoming more aware that brand loyalty can be an effective strategy for securing a competitive edge in business. To supplement current understanding of the importance of coffee shop branding, this study investigates the role of personality traits and congruity in the formation of brand loyalty. This study finds that personality traits have direct effects on congruity and customer satisfaction, the two defining factors of brand loyalty. Overall, our results suggest that the interaction of personality traits, congruity, and satisfaction is essential to the process of influencing coffee shop customers’ brand loyalty.