• Economic Analysis
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.1-36
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• 2018

When it comes to explaining the relationship between inventory investment and business fluctuations, the production smoothing theory and the stock-out avoidance theory take contradictory stances. Decision-making related to inventory investments of corporations is thought to be influenced by both motives, but the relative sizes or directions of their respective influences can differ depending upon the phase of the business cycle. Against this backdrop, this paper differs from existing studies in that it theoretically tests the relative significances of the production smoothing and stock-out avoidance motives in the inventory investment dynamics, while placing its analytical focus on determining the existence and patterns of the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment over the business cycle phases. To this end this paper sets up a non-linear model that is expanded from the existing linear inventory investment model, and checks whether its predictive power is better than that of the existing model. The results of analysis confirm the nature of the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment over the business cycle phases. A stock-out avoidance motive appears but there is no significant production smoothing motive in boom times. In downturns, in contrast, the stock-out avoidance motive is insignificant, but a quality of asymmetric dynamics in which changes in inventory cause the deepening of recessions, due to the non-convexity of production costs proposed by Ramey (1991), is detected. This paper confirms that a model considering the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment can have better predictive power than one that does not consider it, through within-sample and out-of-sample predictions and various predictive power tests. These research results are expected to be useful for economic forecasting, through their enhancement of the understandings of the inventory investment dynamics and of the nature of its business cycle destabilization.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.27-38
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• 2021

Purpose: The study mainly investigates bankruptcy risk and income smoothing tendency of Non-Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs) in Bangladesh. External parties of NBFIs take investment decisions based on financial reports. Stable and predictable income is one of their preference. On the other hand, poor income is one of the signs of NBFIs having bankruptcy risk. Hence the study tries to find whether the NBFIs having bankruptcy are involved in income smoothing or not. Research design, data and methodology: Data were collected from the annual report of twenty-two listed NBFIs in Bangladesh. Data from 2013 to 2017 were used. Altman's Z score and Eckel's model are used to detecting bankruptcy risk and income smoothing respectively. Results: Result implies that most of the NBFIs which have bankruptcy risk are not involved in income smoothing. Therefore, NBFIs which has bankruptcy risk are involved less with income smoothing. Conclusions: The present study revealed that most of the listed NBFIs in Bangladesh are facing bankruptcy risk. They didn't use any fraudulent technique to show smooth income. The findings will help the investor to take an investment decision on NBFIs in Bangladesh. It will convey signals to the stock market in Bangladesh.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.25-51
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• 2008

In this paper, we analyse empirically the fixed asset investment smoothing of working capital of firms listed on Korea Securities Market. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. Firms will seek to lower long-term cost by smoothing fixed asset investment and maintaining stationary investment with working capital. Working capital is not only an important use of fund, but also a source of liquidity that should be used to smooth fixed asset investment relative to cash flow shocks if firms face financial constraints. Working capital investment is more sensitive than fixed asset investment to cash flow fluctuations. If firms face financial constraints, working capital investment will compete with fixed asset investment for the limited pool of available cash flows. So, fixed asset investment will have negative relationship with working capital investment. However, criticism that the positive correlation between cash flows and fixed asset investment could arise simply because cash flows is proxy variable for investment demand. Finally, controlling for the fixed asset investment smoothing effects of working capital results in a much larger estimate of the long run impact of financial constraints. Financial constraints is measured by dividend payout ratio and market access level. Fazzari et al. (1988), Fazzari and Petersen (1993), and Faulkender et al. (2008) emphasize that low dividend firms or market unaccessible firms are more likely to face financial constraints, and rarely make use of new equity issuing. The results from empirical analysis show that financial constraints can be better explained using 'adjustment cost' concept. Specifically, the results show that financial constraints exist and that in order to measure financial constraint effects more succinctly, fixed asset investment smoothing effects with working capital should be considered.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.75-93
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• 2013

In applying Markowitz's portfolio selection model to the stock market, we developed a comprehensive investment decision-making framework including key inputs for portfolio theory (i.e., individual stocks' expected rate of return and covariance) and minimum required expected return. For estimating the key inputs of our decision-making framework, we utilized an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) which places more emphasis on recent data than the conventional simple moving average (SMA). We empirically analyzed the investment results of the decision-making framework with the same 15 stocks in Samsung Group Funds found in the Korean stock market between 2007 and 2011. This five-year investment horizon is marked by global financial crises including the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the European sovereign-debt crisis. We measure portfolio performance in terms of rate of return, standard deviation of returns, and Sharpe ratio. Results are compared with the following benchmarks : 1) KOSPI, 2) Samsung Group Funds, 3) Talmudic portfolio based on the na$\ddot{i}$ve 1/N rule, and 4) Markowitz's model with SMA. We performed sensitivity analyses on all the input parameters that are necessary for designing an investment decision-making framework : smoothing constant for EWMA, minimum required expected return for the portfolio, and portfolio rebalancing period. In conclusion, appropriate use of the comprehensive investment decision-making framework based on the Markowitz's model integrated with EWMA proves to achieve outstanding performance compared to the benchmarks.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2021.06a
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• pp.145-145
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• 2021

Water distribution networks (WDNs) are designed to satisfy water requirement of an urban community. One of the central issues in human history is providing sufficient quality and quantity of water through WDNs. A WDN consists of a great number of pipelines with different ages, lengths, materials, and sizes in varying degrees of deterioration. The available annual budget for rehabilitation of these infrastructures only covers part of the network; thus it is important to manage the limited budget in the most cost-effective manner. In this study, a novel pipe replacement scheduling approach is proposed in order to smooth the annual investment time series based on a life cycle cost assessment. The proposed approach is applied to a real WDN currently operating in South Korea. The proposed scheduling plan considers both the annual budget limitation and the optimum investment on pipes' useful life. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm is used to solve a multi-objective optimization problem. Three decision-making objectives, including the minimum imposed LCC of the network, the minimum standard deviation of annual cost, and the minimum average age of the network, are considered to find optimal pipe replacement planning over long-term time period. The results indicate that the proposed scheduling structure provides efficient and cost-effective rehabilitation management of water network with consistent annual budget.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.7
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• pp.29-37
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• 2020

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates the relationship between country governance quality and worker remittances from foreign countries. Because remittances can be a source of funds for economic development and smoothing economic crises in developing countries, the related topic has been a concern for policy-makers and academic researchers. This paper divides the motives of remittances into altruistic and investment motives through existing papers, and then considers the governance quality the remittance receiving country as one of the determinants of remittances. Design/methodology - Our empirical model considers whether governance quality can affect the volume of remittances, and uses altruistic and investment factors studied in the literature. To do this, a two-step approach is taken. First, the panel data are examined via pooled OLS, random effects, and Tobit estimation. Second, the paper reduces six governance indicators into one variable, Governance, using the principal component technique (PCA) for a robustness check. Findings - The main findings can be summarized as follows. The negative governance variable in the estimation results shows a lower governance quality that induces workers to send savings to their home countries. This means that a country with poor governance quality seems to have more remittance inflows from abroad. It also reveals that poor governance quality is more relevant to an altruistic motive rather than an investment motive, in general. The positive per capita GDP variable shows the investment motive for developed countries. Originality/value - Existing papers have focused on various factors related to the motives of remittances. However, governance quality effects on remittance inflows have not been fully studied so far. This paper considers governance quality in an estimation equation explicitly as one of the determinants of remittances. This area of study is needed, in theory and empirically, in order to fully understand the relationship between governance and remittances.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.11
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• pp.217-239
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• 1998

The intial public offerings(IPO) issued by going public must be decided duly and seriously. In these sense, this paper reviewed and analysed synthetically the theories and the empirical studies on the IPO. The implications about the empirical studies on the IPO in korea stock exchanges(KSE) are as follows: First, evaluating the IPO's intrinsic value, the issued firm's characteristics(style, scale, age, reevaluation and goodwill etc.) and business environments(industry, economic states, regulations and the relation with government etc.) will be considered. Evaluating the IPO's relative value, the stock price of firms registered in KOSDAQ market will be appreciated. Second, the income smoothing of an IPO listed in KSE accrued in the first and second years. Accordingly if auditors audit the accounting reports of firms to list in KSE by going public, they should more concern to the income smoothing on the accounting reports. Third, the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors negatively correlated with the underpricing of an IPO. It is need to promote the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors. Regulatory organizations support to promote the information accuracy of investment banks and the qualities of auditors. Forth, the investors interested in the IPO are to recognize the follows. (1) Relations between the underpricing of an IPO and the ratio of public participation, the issue price, the offer size, the insider ownership, the net asset value per share, the price decision system of an IPO. (2) An entrepreneurs who decided to bring his firm public would like to issue the IPO when company's operating conditions are good.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.67-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPS_t) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEA_t), the current leverage ratio(LEV_t), the current operating return on assets(ROA_t), the current business risk(RISK_t), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURN_t), and the current dividend premium(DPREM_t). In these control variables, CEA_t, LEV_t, and ROA_t are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROA_t and RISK_t are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURN_t is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREM_t is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.89-112
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• 2014

This paper characterizes an optimal combination of grant and income-contingent loans (ICL) from efficiency and equity points of view as a government subsidy program for higher-education. In particular, we show that it is always desirable to introduce ICL for students regardless of their household incomes, and also provide arguments for the superiority of tax-financing system to loans with risk-premium as a financing mechanism of ICL. From policy point of view, this paper suggests a need for the extended coverage of our ICL system, while justifying its current tax-financing system.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.25-34
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the economic ripple effect(ERE) of logistics industry by construction of Trans-Korea Railway (TKR) and present policy measures to minimize the economic loss of South Korea (SK). Research design, data and methodology: As the analysis method, exponential smoothing was used for demand forecasting, Input-Output analysis was used to estimate the economic ripple effect coefficient, and scenario analysis was used to an efficient way to invest in TKR to minimize SK's economic losses. Results: 1) the production(logistics fares) of TKR for 10 years after its completion is about 11.42 trillion won in positive relations, and 26.89 billion won in negative relations. 2) the ERE of SK in positive relations is 24.32 trillion won in production inducement effect, 8.1 trillion won in value-added inducement effect, 3.54 trillion won in import inducement effect, and 70,930 persons in employment inducement effect. But the ERE was insufficient in the negative relations. 3) SK's efficient investment method is providing materials and equipment by SK and building the TKR by North Korea in positive inter-Korea relations. Conclusions: For the successful operation of TKR, international cooperation, legalization and stable peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula are required.