• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.317-342
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• 2017

The US dollar has kept as a position of key currency in the global economy in the changing international monetary system where the euro was introduced to some states of the EU in 1999. It is an evidence of inertia of the US dollar as a key currency. Our previous study (Ogawa and Muto, 2017b) conducted empirical analysis to investigate effects of several events on inertia of the US dollar. One of our findings was that the introduction of the euro increased utility of euro while utility of US dollar was kept unchanged. This paper examines the effects of the global financial crisis and the euro zone crisis as well as the introduction of the euro on the utility of the Japanese yen. The introduction of the euro significantly decreased the utility of the Japanese yen. It indicates that the introduction of the euro increased the utility of the euro while reducing the utility of the Japanese yen rather than the utility of the US dollar. The utility of the Japanese yen has significantly decreased while the global financial crisis and the euro zone crisis occurred. The Japanese yen has a declining trend in terms of its utility over time in the changing international monetary system.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2004

A multi-attribute utility analysis was investigated as a tool for the decision support of countermeasures in early phase of a nuclear accident. The utility function of attributes was assumed to be the second order polynomial expressions, and the weighting constant of attributes was determined using a swing weighting method. Because the main objective of this study focuses on the applicability of a multi-attribute utility analysis as a tool for the decision support of countermeasures in early phase of a nuclear accident, less quantifiable attributes were not included due to lack of information. In postulated accidental scenarios for the application of the designed methodology, the variation of the numerical values of total utility for the considered actions, e.g. sheltering, evacuation and no action, was investigated according to the variation of attributes. As a result, it was shown that the numerical values of total utility for the actions are distinctly different depending on the exposure dose and monetary value of dose. As increasing in both attributes, the rank of the numerical values of total utility increased for evacuation, which is more extreme action than for sheltering, while that of no action decreased. As expected probability of high dose is higher, the break-even values for the monetary value of dose, which are the monetary value of dose when the ranking of actions is changed, were lower. In audition, as aversion psychology for dose is higher, the break-even values for dose were lower.

• Proceedings of the Korean DIstribution Association Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.35-56
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• 2006

The objective of this research is to identify the factors affecting the quality perception of consumer about the private brand and to investigate how the monetary utility of the private brand affects the consumer's preference. The main finding can be summarized in three points. The consumer's usage experience with PB have a positive but store image has no significant effect on the quality perception of PB. The perceived quality and monetary utility of PB has a significant effect on the quality perception while the perceived quality has stronger effect. The competitiveness of the national brand in the same store, post-usage attitude, the perceived quality, and perceived value have significant effect on the preference toward PB but monetary utility does not. The perceived effect has the strongest effect. This result suggests that even the value-seeking consumers prefer PB only when the perceived quality exceeds a certain limits. This study provides the strategic implications for retail managers and theoretical implication for the researcher studying PB.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.61-78
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• 2010

The paper is basically attempted to reveal a possibility of monetary unification and setting an anchor currency in North East Asian economies such as South Korea, China, and Japan. The Cobb-Douglas utility function is tentatively built by a Walrasian economic framework. Korean Won(KRW) is represented for a numeraire in a structural model, and the estimation of a parameter is performed by 2SLS and GARCH-M models. Empirical evidence is found that not only monetary unification itself in this regime seems not to be practicable, but also setting an anchor currency by Chinese Yuan(CNY) or Japanese Yen(JPY) is also inappropriated due to the fact that the estimated parameter is not converged to a unity. Walrasian equilibria are enhanced by the convergence to a unity in the model. It also has to be mentioned that a number of necessary and sufficient conditions should be fulfilled prior to discuss a monetary unification in North East Asian economies. Instead, Asia currency unit(ACU) is more feasible in reality.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.209-231
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• 2007

This paper suggested an approach to characterize travel choice behaviors using the implicit price instead of the indirect utility. The choice criterion to compare the implicit prices of available trip options was developed from the utility maximization problem of a trip maker which is supposed to choose the best option from the available ones differentiated by only by the quantitative attributes such as travel cost and time but also by qualitative attributes such as comfort and safety. The utility maximization problem is constructed under household production theory, and is incorporated with a special kind of joint homogeneous production functions. The implicit price of a certain trip option is the sum of the monetary price and the multiple of travel time and the value-of-travel-time, and the value-of-travel-time refers to the portion of wage, which can be assignable to the trip-making activity. This choice criterion is statistically identifiable, and behaviorally plausible. Moreover, this criterion has the expression simpler than the indirect utility, and therefore could be an effective target of the statistical estimation for travel choice behaviors.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.489-499
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to identify factors affecting piracy of online digital contents, focusing on relative awareness of illegal duplications, compared to legal duplication. To do this, the current study integrates factors proposed in existing literature and the previous studies based on the theory of planned behavior and accesses them from cost-benefit point of view. Main findings are summarized as followed;- First, with regard to relative benefits gained by illegal duplication, it is shown that monetary and psychological utility have positive effects on attitudes and behaviors of illegal duplication. Particularly, it is found that monetary incentive is the main cause of illegal duplication as monetary gains are major factors affecting illegal duplication behaviors. Second, it is suggested that ethical cost is a definitive factor that has negative effects on illegal duplication behaviors while technological cost has also significant effects on illegal duplication behaviors. Third, it is confirmed that there is a significant relationship between attitudes and behaviors of illegal duplication. This result shows that an attitude to illegal duplication is antecedent of behaviors as the belief and the value regarding illegal duplication can lead actual behaviors.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.333-361
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• 2014

By viewing donors for social welfare organization as both givers and beneficiaries, this study aims to address the correlations between the continuity of donors' contributions and enhanced sense of satisfaction as a consequence of participating in donation activities. The predominant concern of this study centers on: (1) the direct effects of individuals' emotional utility, demonstrable utility, trust toward donee organization, self acceptance on the continuation of their donation; (2) the direct effects of individuals' emotional utility, demonstrable utility, trust toward donee organizations on individuals' self-acceptance; (3) the direct effects of individuals' emotional utility, demonstrable utility on their trust toward a donee organization; (4) the indirect effects of individuals' self acceptance on two paths i.e. emotional utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$self acceptance, and demonstrable utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$self acceptance; (5) the indirect effects of individuals' individuals' trust toward donee organization on self acceptance on four paths i.e. emotional utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$continuity of donation; demonstrable utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$continuity of donation; emotional utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$self-acceptance, and demonstrable utility${\rightarrow}$trust${\rightarrow}$self-acceptance; (6) the moderating effects of 'financial status' on the causal relationships in the prescribed structural equation model(SEM). In order to verify the moderating effect of 'financial status', multi-group analysis between each of the two groups were conducted. Research is based on a survey among 1116 donors who had made charitable, monetary contributions to social welfare organizations in Daegu and Kyungpook province. Data was collected from 29 organizations. In order to address the research questions, structural equation were employed. A variety of tests are conducted(metric invariance, critical ratio for difference, structural invariance, multi-group analysis, bias-corrected boot-strapping, latent mean analysis including Cohen's effect test).

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.77-90
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• 2007

Using 2004 Household Income & Expenditure Survey, this study investigated difference in consumption pattern among the households with the different number of children, and estimated the monetary cost of rearing children. The findings were as following. First, the major consumption categories for raising children included the expenditures for education, food materials, utility, health, and communication. Second, the potential consumption needs for clothing & foot ware and culture & entertainment were not fully satisfied for the households with children compared to the households without children. Third, in the households with one child, the level of consumption was about two thirds of that in the households without children. It was slightly above half in the households with two children. Lower consumption level of the households with children was mainly due to the burden of the educational expenditure. Forth, the average monthly cost of raising children was estimated by 680 thousands Won for one child, and 104 thousand Won for two children. Lastly, the implications for the fertility policy and the methods for the estimation of the child cost were suggested based on the results.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.20
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• pp.8993-9004
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• 2014

Background: The incidence rate and the treatment costs of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are high, especially in Thailand. Previous studies indicated that early detection by a surveillance program could help by down-staging. This study aimed to compare the costs and health outcomes associated with the introduction of a HCC surveillance program with no program and to estimate the budget impact if the HCC surveillance program were implemented. Materials and Methods: A cost utility analysis using a decision tree and Markov models was used to compare costs and outcomes during the lifetime period based on a societal perspective between alternative HCC surveillance strategies with no program. Costs included direct medical, direct non-medical, and indirect costs. Health outcomes were measured as life years (LYs), and quality adjusted life years (QALYs). The results were presented in terms of the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) in Thai THB per QALY gained. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were applied to investigate parameter uncertainties. Budget impact analysis (BIA) was performed based on the governmental perspective. Results: Semi-annual ultrasonography (US) and semi-annual ultrasonography plus alpha-fetoprotein (US plus AFP) as the first screening for HCC surveillance would be cost-effective options at the willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of 160,000 THB per QALY gained compared with no surveillance program (ICER=118,796 and ICER=123,451 THB/QALY), respectively. The semi-annual US plus AFP yielded more net monetary benefit, but caused a substantially higher budget (237 to 502 million THB) than semi-annual US (81 to 201 million THB) during the next ten fiscal years. Conclusions: Our results suggested that a semi-annual US program should be used as the first screening for HCC surveillance and included in the benefit package of Thai health insurance schemes for both chronic hepatitis B males and females aged between 40-50 years. In addition, policy makers considered the program could be feasible, but additional evidence is needed to support the whole prevention system before the implementation of a strategic plan.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2023

The standards for heavy metal levels in crustaceans are 0.5 mg/kg and 1.0 mg/kg or lower for lead and cadmium, respectively. Further, the contamination levels of arsenic, mercury, methyl mercury, and tin are being continuously investigated, considering their current exposure levels. Shrimps are potentially exposed to heavy metals because they inhabit areas with abundant organic matter, such as sandy or muddy shores, places with a lot of seaweed, and estuaries. This study measured the monetary value of reducing consumer anxiety and increasing consumer confidence if the government prohibits the sale of shrimp species that exceed the threshold for specific heavy metals and of the top shrimp species for which no threshold for heavy metals is specified. We derived consumer willingness-to-pay (WTP). Combining the estimated WTP with the number of households in the country, the total value of benefits was estimated to be 363.9 billion won. The results of this study will provide an important empirical finding, showing to what extent specific policies regarding heavy metals in seafood can alleviate consumer anxiety and provide psychological reassurance.