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This paper aims to investigate the relationship between legitimate and expert social power types of preadolescent children on the influence perception in their mothers’ purchasing behavior in Peruvian toy stores. The literature review takes into consideration the concepts of social power and the influence on family behavior to then focus on social power within family behavior with the purpose of mainly developing four hypotheses regarding purchasing behavior.

The methodology followed a non-experimental transversal correlational-causal design. A pilot sample size of 67 cases was used. The sample was based on an objective population of Peruvian mothers of families that live in northern Lima and that go to purchase toys to major shopping centers with their children aged 8-11 years.

The results show that the expert social power, as well as the legitimate social power, has a strong relationship. In addition, both social powers have an impact on the influence perception in purchasing child-mother, but not on the influence perception in purchasing mother-child. Moreover, the test of moderation of the expenditure level on toy purchases did not have an effect on the context that was studied.

The contribution shows that important changes are happening in the consumption behavior on the aspect of children influencing mothers, and that for Latin American contexts, the level of expenditure still does not crucially affect the causality demonstrated.

Children living in agricultural areas are exposed to pesticides in their living areas and through activities of daily living. These exposures may lead to adverse health effects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate household environmental and behavioural factors associated with chlorpyrifos exposure and resultant adverse health effects in children living in an agricultural community.

A cross-sectional study was conducted including 65 toddlers (age of 12–36 months) and their parents were face-to-face interviewed from January to February 2016. Toddler’s hands and feet, toys and floors were wiped for chlorpyrifos residue analysis. The wipes were extracted and analysed by gas chromatography with a flame photometric detector, and blood cholinesterase activity was measured by the EQM Test-mate (model 400).

The average age (± standard deviation) of children was 19.9 (±5.9) months. Chlorpyrifos detections were 61.5 per cent (hands), 57.1 per cent (toys), 53.8 per cent (floors) and 30.8 per cent (feet). The highest chlorpyrifos residue concentration was detected on toy surface (3.022 µg/m²). Chlorpyrifos residues on hands and feet were positively correlated with concentrations on floors and toys (Spearman’s ρ, p<0.01). Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that more frequent hand washing (β=−0.236, p=0.067) and showering (β=−0.240, p=0.056) was negatively associated with chlorpyrifos residue on children’s body. House cleaning frequency was significantly associated with an increase in haemoglobin-adjusted erythrocyte cholinesterase (β=0.251, p<0.05).

Chlorpyrifos exposures found in the children household area through their activities and behaviours can cause several adverse health effects. The circumstances associated with chlorpyrifos exposure should be mitigated and reduced to improve the household environment of children living agricultural areas.

The turn-of-the-month (TOM) effect is observed as one of the seasonalities in many markets. The author examines the TOM effect in the KOSDAQ market and finds that the effect is significant. The TOM effect in the KOSDAQ market is not due to size, turn-of-the-year, turn-of-the-quarter or index rebalancing effect. The author also finds that individual and institutional traders do not trade and buy more stocks at the TOM than on the rest days, not consistent with existing explanations of the increased liquidity by individual investors or institutional window-dressing activity. When the author investigated the net buying volume and net turnover of each investor, the net volume and turnover of individual investors at the TOM were significantly lower than those on the other days, rejecting the hypothesis of their increased demand. Interestingly, net foreign volumes at the TOM are significantly higher than on the other days. Finally, using panel regressions, the author finds that stocks with a higher net buying volume of foreigners for the TOM period tend to have higher returns, while stocks with a higher net buying volume of individual traders for the TOM period are likely to have lower returns. The results confirm that the TOM effect is not due to the increased demand of individual investors. Instead, higher net buying volume by foreigners may partially cause the TOM effect. Therefore, this study contributes to the literature by revealing the presence of the TOM effect in the KOSDAQ market and the foreign role in the anomaly in the market even mainly traded by retail investors.

In an effort to reduce ambiguity around customs clearance of items deemed pernicious to public morality and present lessons for customs administration, this research aims to explore ways to improve customs clearance for RealDolls. Furthermore, by suggesting specific ideas to improve the process, this research also aims to contribute to the future customs clearance of socially controversial and legally ambiguous items.

The authors have decided to review studies from ethical and legal perspectives to focus on the legislation and its enforcement issues. The literature review is designed to provide insights on how to incorporate legal and ethical reasoning in the customs clearance process for RealDolls. Supplementary interviews were also conducted with criminal lawyers and customs officials to obtain expert knowledge on domestic legislation and customs control against the sex toys industry.

As a result of the study, it is found that a complete ban on RealDoll infringes on individuals' right to pursue happiness guaranteed by the Constitution and in most cases, cannot be implemented without loopholes. Therefore, it is suggested that the import regulation on RealDolls should be changed to the negative list system, which selectively disapproves certain RealDolls based on a list of RealDolls previously denied clearance by either the Supreme Court or the Customs Clearance Screening Committee. In addition, to have sufficient ethical and legal grounds, it is necessary to expand research on RealDolls regulation and actively introduce the process of obtaining social consensus.

There has been little discussion on regulating RealDolls on the customs clearance level; no specific criterion exists except the public morality clause. This study is vital in that it reviews issues of RealDolls customs clearance from legal and ethical perspectives. Doing so also has a practical significance of providing implications for the customs policies regarding items deemed pernicious to public morality.