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This paper shows the limitation of the cost-of-carry model which is used for pricing the theoretical value of the KTB futures, and proposes an alternative pricing model based on the term structure of interest rates. Under the assumption of 1-factor term structure, this paper treats the theoretical price of KTB futures price as a risk-neutral expectation of payoff function at maturity and derives the approximated formula for pricing the KTB futures. As compared with our price of KTB futures using the term structure of interest rates, the conventional KOFEX price based on the cost-of-carry model tends to be overvalued as the time to maturity increases. This result is due to the difference between the futures and forward prices which is caused by treating the futures contract as the forward contract in the conventional KOFEX pricing model. In particular, this discrepancy becomes more significant when the price of underlying asset and the interest rates are negatively correlated and the time to maturity is longer. The bond futures contract is a typical example of financial instrument whose price has a negative correlation with interest rates

We suggest the method of evaluation of illiquid assets on the market in the presence of proportional transaction costs by using two consumption/investment models. We study an investor's implicit evaluation of an illiquid asset whose trading incurs a proportional transaction cost. We show that the investor assigns an implicit value between the bid and ask price and uses it for his investment and/or consumption decisions. We also show that the implicit value is an increasing function of the investor's liquidity ratio, which is a measure of liquidity of the investor's asset holdings.

This paper examines global imbalance and rebalancing issues from the viewpoint of Korea. As IMF (2009) notes, the unwinding of global imbalance seems inevitable and, in fact, it is in progress. We illustrate that Korea, with a flexible exchange rate system and relatively balanced current accounts, has little direct linkage to global imbalance. However, we also find that Korea is not immune to the costly adjustment process of imbalance due to the triangular trade between Korea, China and the U.S. The fact that Korea is ‘indirectly’ linked to global imbalance limits Korea’s ability to cope with the situation. Boosting domestic demand, often mentioned recommendation for East Asia, is not an appropriate solution for Korea with low personal savings rate. A lot depends on China’s policy. If China reduces its dependence on U.S. market and increases domestic consumption despite unemployment risk in export manufacturing sector, it will provide Korea with an opportunity for more stable growth based on China’s final demand. Korea can also make efforts to increase economic integration and expand monetary cooperation in Asia that would help to increase consumption demands and final goods trade in the region.

This research investigates how and why firms adopt inclusive diversity activities, identifying the mechanisms behind firms involved in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)–friendly pursuits. By integrating resource dependence theory, institutional theory and stakeholder theory, the authors argue that a firm's LGBT friendliness is affected by marketing orientation and the external political environment.

This study uses the Corporate Equality Index, as reported by the Human Rights Campaign, of 460 (1,540 firm-year observations) firms in the United States between 2006 and 2019.

This study finds a significant, positive relationship between a firm's marketing orientation and LGBT-friendly activities. This research also determines that this relationship is weakened by state-level diversity policies and country-level political uncertainty.

The study results provide unique theoretical and practical implications for the debate on inclusive corporate policy in similar global markets.

A comprehensive operational framework is proposed to explain young consumers’ (i.e. generations Y and Z) engagement with brands on social media sites (SMSs). This paper aims to synthesize two motivational theories: uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM).

A selective literature review was conducted to examine recent publications related to young consumers’ brand-driven engagement behavior on SMSs in which either TAM or U&G theory was applied. A three-stage method was used: an initial search was followed by vertical and horizontal searches and then a targeted search of scholarly publications. At each stage, the university’s library databases and Google Scholar were searched for relevant, mainly peer-reviewed articles, using appropriate filters and keywords. The articles’ references and the studies that cited those articles were added to the initially identified research pool (vertical search), coupled with publications of a similar nature based on keywords (horizontal search). The final stage, the targeted search, involved identifying and adding specific articles (e.g. literature reviews and integrated models).

After a review of a significant number of U&G and TAM studies, similarities and differences of the two theories were identified, and an integrated operational framework was developed. Based on empirical findings of existing U&G and TAM studies, testable propositions were presented.

The proposed hybrid model and the associated propositions provide a research opportunity to empirically examine how young consumers’ motivational (i.e. motivating and demotivating) drivers, normative influence, perceived value and attitudes (toward brand content and engagement) predict intention or actual brand-related behavior on SMSs.

Much of current research indicates that generations Y and Z (“digital natives”) spend considerably more time on SMSs than any of the older generations (“digital immigrants”). Thus, brands that aim to target this cohort need to develop successful engagement strategies (e.g. gamification and influencer marketing) on current and emerging SMSs. The suggested conceptualization provides guidelines for companies to effectively use such communication strategies to motivate young people to engage with their brands on sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

A review of TAM research indicates that it lacks rich motivating/demotivating constructs, and thus borrows from other theories to complement this weakness. An examination of U&G frameworks, particularity Ducoffe (1996)-based models, indicates that these frameworks mainly test engagement with social media advertising but seldom other types of brand-driven engagement on SMSs. In addition, many U&G studies focus less than TAM studies do on outcome variables such as behavioral intentions and behavior. Thus, the authors propose a synthesized U&G and TAM framework that mitigates both theories’ weaknesses and builds on their strengths, enriching the growing research on brand-driven engagement behavior via SMSs.

This study investigates where Korean firms allocate cash flow. Our sample consists of listed firms in the KOPSI section of Korea Exchange over the period 2001-2016. Our estimation based on a system of equations shows that the largest use of Korean firms’ cash flow is repaying debt, followed by buttressing cash reserves and financing investment. On average, Korean firms allocate 38.5% of cash flow to repaying debt (specifically, 27.3% to paying off short-term debt and 11.2% long-term debt), 32.1% to buttressing cash reserves and 21.5% to financing investment. After dividing the sample into financially constrained and unconstrained firms (based on dividends, firm size or bond ratings), we find that financially constrained firms use more of cash flow in financing investment but less of it in reducing long-term debt (or total debt) than financially unconstrained firms do. As a result, the negative relation—that is, substitution—between cash flow and external finance (primarily long-term debt issuance) is less strong for financially constrained firms than it is for financially unconstrained firms. This finding is consistent with Almeida and Campello’s (2010) result from their U.S. study.

Two‐noded curved beam elements, CMLC and IMLC, are developed on the basis of Timoshenko’s beam theory and curvilinear co‐ordinates. These elements are developed by the separation of the radial displacement into the bending and the shear deflection and the projection of the shear deflection into bending deflection. In the CMLC element, field‐consistent membrane strain interpolation is adapted for removing the membrane locking. The CMLC element shows the rapid and stable convergence on the wide range of radius, thickness and length of the curved beam. The field‐consistent membrane strain and the separation of radial displacement produce the most efficient linear element possible.

Collaborative filtering (CF), one of the most popular recommendation techniques, is based on the principle of word-of-mouth communication between other like-minded users. The process of identifying these like-minded or similar users remains crucial for a CF framework. Conventionally, a neighbor is the one among the similar users who has rated the item under consideration. To select neighbors by the existing practices, their similarity deteriorates as many similar users might not have rated the item under consideration. This paper aims to address the drawback in the existing CF method where “not-so-similar” or “weak” neighbors are selected.

The new approach proposed here selects neighbors only on the basis of highest similarity coefficient, irrespective of rating the item under consideration. Further, to predict missing ratings by some neighbors for the item under consideration, ordinal logistic regression based on item–item similarity is used here.

Experiments using the MovieLens (ml-100) data set prove the efficacy of the proposed approach on different performance evaluation metrics such as accuracy and classification metrics. Apart from higher prediction quality, coverage values are also at par with the literature.

This new approach gets its motivation from the principle of the CF method to rely on the opinion of the closest neighbors, which seems more meaningful than trusting “not-so-similar” or “weak” neighbors. The static nature of the neighborhood addresses the scalability issue of CF. Use of ordinal logistic regression as a prediction technique addresses the statistical inappropriateness of other linear models to make predictions for ordinal scale ratings data.

This study is designed to investigate how the use of reinsurance affects the primary insurers' profitability and pricing on their insurance products.

This study examines the impact of reinsurance on the insurers’ profitability using a two stage least square to control the endogeneity problem with a reinsurance variable. The study analyzes 11,894 firm-year observations between 2001 and 2009.

The study finds that the use of reinsurance in general has a negative impact on property/casualty insurers' performance. However, reinsurance obtained from affiliated firms has a positive impact on profitability, which supports the existence of internal capital markets in the insurance industry.

The finding of study implies that reinsurance transactions are used among affiliated insurers for not only managing underwriting risk and increasing underwriting capacity but also subsidizing capital through internal capital markets. In term of limitation, due to the availability of price data, this study uses only one insurance cycle of 9 years, albeit not weakening the findings.

Especially for non-affiliated insurers, the finding suggests that they need to find an alternative way to transfer underwriting risk without having to use costly reinsurance.

This paper directly investigates the impact of reinsurance utilization on insurers' profitability and pricing.

Discusses the 6th ITCRR, its breadth of textile and clothing research activity, plus the encouragement given to workers in this field and its related areas. States that, within the newer research areas under the microscope of the community involved, technical textiles focuses on new, ‘smart’ garments and the initiatives in this field in both the UK and the international community at large. Covers this subject at length.