• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.173-201
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• 2017

This study examined the degree of socioeconomic deprivation in the areas of material hardship, health, housing, employment, and social network among people using debt relief programs. The sample, 209 individuals, was recruited from major agencies offering debt relief programs, including Seoul Bankruptcy Court, Credit Counseling and Recovery Service, and Seoul Welfare Foundation. Data were collected through in-person interviews in 2016. The sample was compared in terms of the level of deprivation with the general population and the low-income group, extracted from the Korea Welfare Panel Study. The debtors group demonstrated a substantially higher level of deprivation on all the dimensions examined. For example, the proportion of people who suffered from hunger was 37.8% in the debtors group compared to 6.7% in the low-income group. The proportion of people who had suicidal ideation in the last 12 months was 57.9% compared to 19.2% in the low-income group and 2.7% in the general population. The level of deprivation was different by chapter choice of consumer bankruptcy. Policy and practice implications of the results were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.221-229
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to investigate the housing affordability of multi-family dwelling in Seoul and to systemize the housing expenditure patterns and housing affordability according to household and housing characteristics. Housing expenditures are basically composed of the payments of four major items. including utilities. home alteration and interior furnishing. home mortgage debt. and monthly rent. Housing affordability index as operationally defined in this study is Housing Expenditure-to-Income Ratio (HEIR). The ratios were computed for each of the four housing expenditure items. Data for 465 multi-family dwellers were gathered from the structured questionnaire. The results showed the differences between household and housing characteristics on housing expenditure levels and HEIR. In addition. this differences had influence on future housing choice behavior. The analysis on the variables of housing choice behavior showed the result that user cost considering capital gains were less important. comparing those of early 1990's.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.9-20
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• 2018

Global rating agencies, such as Moody's and S&P, have assigned credit ratings to corporate bonds issued by Japanese firms since 1980s. Local Japanese rating agencies, such as R&I and JCR, have more market share than the global raters. We examine the yield spreads of 1,050 yen-denominated corporate bonds issued by financial firms in Japan from 1998 to 2014 and find no evidence that bonds rated by at least one global agency are associated with a significant reduction in the cost of debt as compared to those rated by only local rating agencies. Unlike non-financial firms, the reputation effect of global rating agencies does not exist for Japanese financial firms. We also observe that firms with less information asymmetry are more likely to acquire ratings from Moody's or S&P. Additionally, the firm's financial profile does not affect its choice to seek out ratings from global raters. Our findings are contradictory to those by Han, Pagano, and Shin (2012), who employ bonds issued by non-financial firms in Japan. Our conjecture is that the asymmetric nature of financial firms makes investors less likely to depend on a credit risk assessment by rating agencies in determining the yields of new bonds.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.27-49
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• 2011

This article proposes to stay away from contemporary critical arguments concerning Michael's value system, which is construed mainly from his choice between his patrimonial lands and his son Luke. Presuming that Michael's value system as have been argued so far could never be the poet Wordsworth's own concern at the time of the composition of the poem "Michael," this article proposes to get back to the all too real socio-historical situation of the early nineteenth-century England. Mere consideration of the socio-historical situation, when combined with a close reading of the poetic text (a close reading of both the poetic story and the poetic history from which the story may be said to have been constructed), directs us to the poet working on the simple paradigm of 'the country and the city at war with each other' but the victory having been given to the city already. The guarantee contract for a supposedly prospering nephew's debt and the letter from another prospering relative in London are undoubtedly the key elements that lead us to the war paradigm. Michael's family members, each and all including Michael himself, and all of their village people, have been imbued with the city's commercial values, which renders them all the more easier victims within the war context. Luke's defeat in the city is viewed as being really the consequence, rather than the cause, of Michael's defeat, which became apparent as soon as the news of the latter's financial disaster reached his ear. Michael should therefore be regarded as one of the typical English countryfolk of the time, with whom Wordsworth often, but not always, identifies himself. Insofar as the economic view or attitude is concerned, there certainly is a distance between Michael and Wordsworth, this article argues.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.75-84
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• 2014

Purpose - This article aims to examine whether the stock issuance of firms in the retail industry follows Myers' (1984) pecking order theory, which is based on information asymmetry. According to the pecking order model, firms have a sequence of financing decisions, of which the first choice is to use retained earnings, the second one is to get into safe debt, the next involves risky debt, and the last involves finance with outside equity. Since the 2000s, the polarization of the LEs (Large enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) arose in the retail industry. The LEs exhibited an improvement in growth and profitability, whereas SMEs had a tendency to degenerate. This study contributes to corroborating the features of financing decisions in the retail industry distinguished from the other industries. Research design, data, and methodology - This study considers the stocks listed on the KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets from 1991 to 2013, and is more concentrated on the stocks in the retail industry. The data were collected from the financial information company, WISEfn. The empirical analysis is conducted by employing two measures of net equity issues (and), which were introduced in Fama and French (2005), and can be calculated from firms' accounting information. All variables are generated as the aggregate value of the numerator divided by aggregate assets, which, in effect, treats the entire sample as a single firm. Substantially, the financing decisions of the firms were analyzed by examining how often and under what circumstances firms issue and repurchase equity. Then, this study compares the features of the retail industry with those of the other industries. Results - The proportion of sample firms that show annual net stock issues reaching the level of the year's average was 54.33% for the 1990s, and fell to 39.93% per year for the 2000s. In detail, the fraction of the small firms actually increases from 45.08% to 51.04%, whereas that of large firms shows a dramatic decline from 58.94% to 24.76%. Considering the fact that the large firms' rapid increase in growth after the 2000s may lead to an increase in equity issues, this result is rather surprising. Meanwhile, net stock repurchases of assets are considerably disproportionate between the large (-50.11%) and the small firms (-15.66%) for the 2000s. Conclusions - Stock issuance of retail firms is not in line with the traditional seasoned equity offering based on information asymmetry. The net stock issuance of the small firms in the retail industry can be interpreted as part of an effort to reorganize business and solicit new investment to resolve degenerating business performance. For large firms, on the other hand, the net repurchase can be regarded as part of an effort to rearrange business for efficiency and amplifying synergy across business sections through spin-off. These results can help the government establish a support policy on retail industry according to size.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.205-221
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• 2019

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of cash holdings on firm value in export companies. To investigate this effect, we analyzed 5,386 samples drawn from export companies listed in the KOSDAQ from 2011 to 2018. During this period, the International Financial reporting Standards have been employed. The research results are as follows. First, the results of a T-test showed that the level of the firm value of export companies with high levels of cash holdings is significantly higher than that of those with low levels of cash holdings. In addition, the level of the firm value of export companies with higher levels of cash holdings than in the previous year is higher than the level might otherwise be. Furthermore, the effects of cash holdings on firm value are similar to those on return on asset. These results suggested that export companies have little used a way of increasing their debt levels in order to increase cash holdings. Second, the results of a multivariate regression analysis presented that the cash holdings of export companies in listed the KOSDAQ significantly influence their firm value. Moreover, a higher level of cash holdings than in the previous year significantly affect firm value. These results proposed that making higher cash holdings than in the previous year might be useful in enhancing firm value. We found that export companies efforts to increase cash holdings positively influence changes in firm value. We also found that Korean export companies maintain their financial stability by obtaining sufficient liquidity specifically in a high uncertainty era like the recent time. We finally firmed an effort to maintain cash holdings as a reasonable choice for export companies.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.41-61
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• 2004

Before 2003 the companies in Korea should capitalize the interest expenses that are attributable to the acquisition, construction or production of a qualifying assets. However, according to the revised standard which should be applied from 2003, the companies can either capitalize the interest expenses or recognize as an expense when they are incurred. Therefore almost all the companies confronted with the decision making of accounting choices on the interest capitalization. This paper empirically examines which financial characteristics of the companies affect the accounting choice by using logistic regression model and reviews the sufficiency of the foot notes disclosures regarding the capitalized interest. The variables of the financial characteristics are change of debt-equity ratio, borrowing ratio, qualifying assets ratio, firm size and income smoothing. The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, among the financial characteristics, only qualifying asset ratio has the significant difference between capitalized companies and expensing companies. Second, the results of logistic regression indicate that qualifying asset ratio and firm size have the significant influence on the accounting choices. Therefore, I cannot find the evidence supporting that the companies use the accounting choice to manage the financial ratios.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.452-458
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze how managers' reporting choices affect asymmetric cost behaviors in manufacturing firms in Korea and Japan. In order to analyze the contents, SG&A, COGS, and operating expenses (OE), which were the targets of the previous studies, were analyzed using the operating costs paid in cash (OC) and the operating expenses before depreciation (OEBD) proposed by Shust and Weiss (2014). The differentiation of cost behavior was analyzed. The analysis revealed, first, that both Korea and Japan showed the difference between cost behavior of OE and OC. Specifically, the cost stickiness of OC was higher than that of OE. In particular, it showed that Korea firms have a higher intensity of tangible fixed assets that are weakening the cost stickiness compared to Japanese firms. Second, the occurrence of depreciation costs weakens the cost stickiness in both countries. Lastly, the higher the debt ratio, the more aggressively the cost reduction of Japanese companies. We hope that this study will help to improve the relationship between the two countries at the academic level when the Korea-Japan relationship cools down.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.99-123
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• 2004

We focus in this study on incremental financing decisions and estimate a logit model for the probability a firm will choose a private placement over a public bond issue. We hypothesize that information asymmetry, financial risk, agent cost, and proprietary information may affect a firm's choice between public debt and private placements. We find that as the size of firm increases, the probability of choosing a private placement declines significantly. The age of the firm, however, is not a significant factor affecting the firm's choice between public and privately-placed bond. The coefficients on the firm's leverage and non-investment grade dummy are significantly positive, meaning firms with high financial risk and credit risk select private placements. The findings regarding agency-related variables, PER and Tobin's Q, are somewhat complex. We find significant evidence that firms with high PER prefer private placements to public bonds, suggesting that borrowers with options to engage in asset substitution or underinvestment are more likely to choose private placements. The coefficient of Tobin's Q is negative, but not significant, which weakly support the hold-up hypothesis. When we construct an interaction term on the Tobin's Q with a non-investment rating dummy, however, the Tobin's Q interaction term becomes positive and significant. Thus, high Tobin's Q firms with a speculative rating are significantly more likely to choose a private placement, regardless of the potential hold-up problems. The ratio of R&D to sales, proxy for proprietary information, is positively significant. This result can be interpreted as evidence in favor of a role for proprietary information in the debt sourcing decision process for these firms.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 1981

This survey was made to determine the overall health situation on (1) the status of sickness; (2) the medical care utilization; (3) the medical cost in Mi-Kum Myun, Nam Yang Ju Gun, Kyung-Gi Do. The survey with questionnaire was carried out with 2,840 peoples in 560 households from August 9th to 16th, 1979. The findings from the survey were as follows; 1. Annual morbidity rate of the prolonged ill cases was 97.2 per 1,000 population (male 94.7, female 99.6), The highest age specific morbidity rate was 274.5 of the 45-to 64-year group and the lowest was 21.9 of the 5-to 14-year group. 2. Annual morbidity rate of the new patients was 777.5 per 1,000 population(male 644.5, female 909.5). 3. The chief complaints distribution of the prolonged ill cases was: local pain 36.6%, indigestion 22.4%, and coughing 7.3%, respectively, In terms of age and sex distribution, a large number of female of the 45-to 64-year group complained of local pain or general pain and a large number of both sexes of the 25-to 44-year group complaned of indigestion. 4. The major diseases of the new patients which classified with International Classfication of Diseases (I.C.D.) were disease of the respiratory system, disease of the digestive system, and disease of the musculo-skeletal system and connective tissue for male, disease of the respiratory system, disease of the digestive system, and accident, poisoning, violence for female. 5. Total ill days of the 92 new patients were 536 days and average ill days per case were $6{\pm}38.3$ days. 6. The rate of receiving treatment in the prolonged ill cases was 82.2%(medical facilities 46.4%, drug stores 27.5%, herb medicine 8.3%). 7. The rate of receiving treatment by first choice of the new patients was 88.0% (drug stores 57.%, medical facilities 28.2%, and herb medicine 2.2%), and the rate of receiving treatment by second choice was 30.9% of first treatment cases (medical facilities 44.0%, drug store 44.0% and herb meicine 12.0%). 8. Annual hospitalization rate per 1,000 population was 12.0 (male 12.0, female 11.9). 9. The locations of medical facilities utilized by out-patients were: in the prolonged ill cases Seoul or other places 66.4%, Nam Yang Ju Gun 33.6%, in cases of the new patients Seoul or other places 35.1% and Nam Yang Ju Gun 64.9% respectively. 10. The satisfaction rate of the new patients by mode of receiving treatment was: in cases of primary utilization by first choice herb medicine 100.0%, medical facilities 88.5%, and drug stores 69.8%, in cases of secondary utilization medical facilities 100.0%, herb medicine 100.0%, and drug stores 72.7% respectively. 11. The medical cost per utilized facilities was as follows; in average medical fee per case out-patient 8.947 won, in-patient 266,000 won, drug stores 1,532 won, and herb medicine 15,607 won, in average medical fee per day out-patient 4,829 won, in patient 14,178 won, drug stores 891 won, and herb medicine 4,906 won respectively. 12. The sources of the hospital charges paid out were: there own expense 50.0%, debt 35.3%, and security of medical care 14.7% respectively.