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The article announces that the Program Committee of the 12th International Convention of the East Asian Economic Association Convention is calling for papers related to its theme "Asia and the Global Economic Recovery." Possible topics for thematic sessions include economic integration, multinationals, global imbalances, and multinationals while for general sessions include exchange rates, labor and human resources, and financial institutions and markets. It is noted that the convention will be held in Seoul, Korea on October 2 and 3, 2010.

"This paper has firstly discussed the development strategy and urbanization in [the Republic of] Korea for the period 1960-1980. [This is] followed with an intensive review of the past and recent population redistribution policy of Korea. Finally the authors make some general suggestions which are characterized as an expansion of opportunities and services in the underprivileged areas." (summary in CHI), (excerpt)

This paper investigates oil refiners' conduct in the Korean gasoline market. Specifically, I examine which of two modes of conduct, Bertrand-Nash competition or collusion, better fits the data. Unlike previous literature, this paper employs a differentiated product approach to address the stylized discrepancy in refiners' brands' prices: stable stratification of prices among refiners, but an unlikely equilibrium outcome in the homogenous goods market. Correct understanding of refiners' conduct is important because appropriate policy responses to collusion differ significantly from appropriate responses to competition-driven outcomes. The results of this paper support the hypothesis that Bertrand-Nash competition better explains refiners' conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether the disposition effect (DE), i.e., the tendency of investors to ride losses and realize gains, exists in the Korean stock index futures market. Using a unique database, we find strong evidence for the DE and explain this in terms of investor characteristics. We also investigate the effect that the disposition bias has on investment performance. There are four main findings. First, individual investors are much more susceptible to the DE than institutional and foreign investors. Second, sophistication and trading experience tend to reduce the DE. Third, the DE is stronger in long positions than in short positions. Finally, there is a negative relationship between the DE and investment performance. This result is consistent with Odean (1998, Journal of Finance, 53, 1775–1798), but contrasts with Locke and Mann (2005, Journal of Financial Economics, 76, 401–444) who find no evidence of any contemporaneous measurable costs associated with the DE. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 29:496–522, 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, Japan, and Korea have signed free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with many countries since the late 1990s. This study analyzes the determinants of staging categories for tariff elimination in FTA negotiations of these East Asian countries by using an ordered probit model. The two key findings are (a) each country had set up a product scope for tariff elimination and exclusion list efficiently to maximize its national economic interests, and (b) the staging categories were determined by product-level competitiveness, industrial characteristics, and political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior to the 1997 financial crisis, the Korean economy had based its growth policies on East Asia's economic catch-up model which was based mainly on the Japanese development experience. However, the events that lead to the 1997 crisis and the changes instituted in the Korean economy after the crisis have put to question whether the traditional East Asian growth model will continue to be viable. This paper examines two alternative models of development, namely the “Anglo-Saxon” and the “Continental European” models, and evaluates their relevance for Korea's future development challenges. Despite many common features these models share, they are also quite distinctive with regard to their treatment of the labor market system and the role of government. By focusing on the model's capacity to expand employment and to provide sustainable growth as the most important criteria, it is suggested that Korea should follow the “Anglo-Saxon model”, at least in the short- to medium-term. In comparing Korea's economy with other advanced economies when they were at the similar stage of development, it is found that Korea's growth potential lags behind that of countries such as Japan, Germany, Finland, and Ireland. The efficiency of Korea's investment is found to be only slightly better than Japan while it is inferior to all other advanced economies. Despite these challenges, Korea is apparently moving toward the “Continental European model”, with the Korean government increasing its own size and plans for further expenditures on social security and welfare. However, in order to ensure sustainable development with significant job creation, this paper argues that Korea should switch its direction and adopt the “Anglo-Saxon model” as soon as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Due to worsening environmental conditions around the globe, firms have been investing a great deal of money in green technologies as a way of coping with the environmental crisis. This paper uses a unique data set based on the Korea Innovation Survey to examine the impact of green innovation on labor productivity, and the determinants of environmental activities in 2010. The empirical results show that green innovation intended for both firm and customer benefits has a positive effect on labor productivity. This finding means that firms need to implement firm-oriented green innovation as well as customer-oriented green innovation in order to increase their performance. Our findings also show that there are significant differences in aggregate green innovations depending on different firm sizes and industries. Specifically, large firms implement environmental activities more than small ones, and pollution-intensive industries tend to invest more in activities related to environmental technology. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the hedging performance with mini gold futures traded on the Korean Exchange (KRX). We use the daily prices of gold and mini gold futures from September 13, 2010 to May 31, 2013. We employ the OLS model and VECM as well as the bivariate GJR-GARCH (1,1) model. Our empirical results maintain that the time varying GJR-GARCH (1,1) model yields better hedging performance than time-invariant OLS or VECM models in the both in-sample and out-of sample periods. We thus recommend that investors consider the asymmetric dynamic hedging model when constructing the minimum-variance hedging portfolio to manage the market risk exposure of gold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how and why the Korean online gaming industry gained dominance in the global market, despite US and Japanese competition in related gaming sectors. It examines how far this was stimulated by government intervention and how far it was due to private entrepreneurs. Using case studies of innovative firms, it argues that, whilst interventionist industrial policy was influential, the most important factors were changing market conditions, investment in higher education and telecommunications infrastructure. These created profit opportunities that Korean entrepreneurs were able to exploit through the foundation of new firms and access to university-based social networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a computable model of trade to forecast the effects of the US–Korea free trade agreement on the manufacturing sector. The model uses the Eaton–Kortum methodology to explain intra-industry trade instead of the usual Armington assumption. It is parameterized using 2005 data for 15 industries and 53 countries. The results show that implementing KORUS would increase the US manufacturing exports to Korea by 56.9% and Korean manufacturing exports to the US by 18.9%. It would also increase manufacturing employment by 26,500 jobs in Korea and 34,200 jobs in the US. In addition, KORUS would lead to significant changes in the patterns of trade and production. The US and Korea would increase their specialization in the industries where they have strong technological comparative advantages. Finally, KORUS would increase welfare in both countries, but only modestly: by 0.27% in Korea and 0.013% in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper constructs a new dataset of the industry-specific real effective exchange rate, based on the producer price indices, for Japan, China, and Korea on a monthly basis from January 2001 to February 2013 in order to provide a better indicator for export price competitiveness. By conducting simulation analysis, we found that Korean electrical machinery firms substantially improved their cost competitiveness by lowering their production costs during the Korean won appreciation period, while Japanese firms' large plant investment caused by management misjudgments led to excessive production capacity, which resulted in the deterioration of Japanese export competitiveness. A structural vector autoregression analysis also reveals that industry differences of cost competitiveness as well as nominal exchange rate changes have significant impact on export performances of Japan and Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the Korea-Japan free trade agreement (FTA) model. Topics mentioned include the labor market, marginal productivity, and wage rate of the two countries, the opposition of farmers to FTA, and the effects of the aging population in Japan to its economic condition. Also mentioned are the exchange rate that was determined by exports and imports in trade and the rate of return (ROR) by two countries.

The rise of neoliberalism and economic globalization is identified as a significant factor contributing to macroscale structural changes in the political economy of migration and education in Korea and Canada. In this paper the empirical focus of analysis is on how nation-states have played important roles in shaping the market conditions of the international education industry under the structural changes brought about by neoliberalization. I pay particular attention to how different public institutions have become actively engaged in profit-generating activities through promoting and selling Canadian education. In so doing, I reconsider the implications of neoliberalism for the political economy of migration and international education. Drawing upon empirical evidence collected from fieldwork in Seoul and Vancouver, this paper aims to explore the complexities and locally specific outcomes of neoliberal projects. In relation to the rise of international education, this paper adds to the burgeoning literature that acknowledges that taken-for-granted views on neoliberalism are problematic and further highlights the role of public institutions as active facilitators in the process of market expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three objectives: i) to empirically examine labor market transitions in deindustrializing Asian economies; ii) to study the character of labor market risks and how these risks are shifting by gender, by education level, and by age in the transitional period; and iii) to rethink the commonly accepted assumptions that deindustrialization and globalization are the main causes of new labor market risks and, thus propose the possibility of institutional legacy as an important factor for such risk shifts. This study focuses on the labor market risks in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Three steps are taken in this inquiry. First, this study commences by empirically examining the three labor market changes mentioned above. Second, it challenges the idea of the emergence of 'new risks,' arguing instead for the concept of 'risk shift': the feature of risk shifting to different demographic groups. Lastly, with the empirical evidence already used, this paper discusses whether deindustrialization or globalization is a sufficient cause for risk shifts in deindustrializing Asian economies, proposing that institutional legacy may be an important factor in risk shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research in international trade has explored the stylized facts and causes and effects of export diversification. A simple model in this paper drawing on the work of Melitz suggests that there is an order in which a country spreads its goods to foreign countries. We estimate the order by using a methodology which takes account of the fact that most goods are not exported to several countries in our sample (unbalanced panel). We find that Korea exports its new goods first to the United States, followed by Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and most recently to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Finally we find that the countries that Korea has exported to first are those with large GDP, low tariff rates, geographic proximity, language familiarity, in-country Korean export promotion offices, and high-quality institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large areas of Northeast Asia experienced drought in 1939. Agricultural production in Korea decreased significantly, but the drought did not cause famine in Japan despite its dependence on rice imports from Korea. The paper analyses the impact of the 1939 drought on the markets for rice and electricity in Japan. The authorities were ill-prepared for such a disaster but willing to use it for the purpose of covering for other problems. The drought thus accelerated the move of Japan's economic system towards a managed economy. A lower total rainfall in Japan in 1940 did not generate similar problems, suggesting that the broader political, economic, and social context is crucial to the identification of short-term climatic fluctuations as crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean lifelong learning in practice is gradually adapted by neo-liberals and the discourses of the economic market. Considering that the public foundation of Korean education is fragile to cope with the market challenge, the whole picture of Korean learning ecology is rapidly distorted towards the establishment of the learning market and the challenge it presents to public education. This paper attempts to grasp the evolution of the lifelong learning ecosystem in Korea and to explain the meaning of the learning market in this context. I am going to argue that (1) the emergence of the learning market changed the traditional learning ecosystem significantly; (2) the discourse of lifelong learning in this context also rapidly deconstructs the code of 'education' and replaces the learning system to fit to learning capitalism as a part of the knowledge economy; and (3) the Korean case clearly reveals the changes in the complex ecosystem of lifelong learning in this way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the processes of bank and corporate restructuring in South Korea since the 1997–98 economic crisis, and seeks to highlight how the state has intervened in a highly dirigiste manner in order to expedite restructuring in both the commercial bank and corporate sectors. At the same time it demonstrates the clear neoliberal principles that have underpinned the state's attempts to promote restructuring. The state has shown a clear determination to take action against insolvent firms and financial institutions no matter how large or strategically important they may be, to impose hard budget constraints on key economic actors. Furthermore, the state has actively sought to engineer the sale of key domestic firms and banks to foreign investors. We argue that Korea's efforts to create a functioning neoliberal economy have been largely successful and are functional from the perspective of Korean capitalism, if not the perspective of individual Korean firms. Changes in the global economy in the two decades preceding the 1997–98 crisis imposed an increasingly inescapable pressure on the Korean state to effect a neoliberal transformation and Korea's future as a centre of capitalist accumulation has for some time been bound up with the success of the neoliberal project. In conclusion, this paper seeks to draw out the broader implications of this reading of the post-crisis restructuring programme for debates on global economic liberalization and the future of capitalist diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the conventional view that the Korean financial crisis of 1997 was simply the result of pervasive government intervention in the economy. While Korea has had a long history of state involvement, and while state policies did contribute to inefficient resource allocation and inefficiencies, the strategy of market liberalization introduced in the early 1990s hardly performed any better. In fact, this paper illustrates that, although not the immediate trigger of the Korea's financial and currency meltdown, the poorly sequenced and implemented financial liberalization contributed greatly to the scale and pace of the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the abstracts of articles about economics. 'A Method for Evaluating a Region's Economic and Environmental Situation: The Case of East Asian Countries,' by D. Giannias, P. Liargovas and G. Manolas; 'Economic Recovery and Future Challenges of Korea,' by Ungsuh K. Park; 'Economic Shock and Structural Change: Is There a New Economy in Korea, Too?,' by Jong-Kun Lee. Ivanov.

Climate change is a growing problem and has been highlighted as a global issue. Empirical evidence increasingly indicates its obvious potential risks to humans and society. As members of this society, business organizations face greatly diverse climate change-related risks that they must recognize and respond to. However, gaps exist between scientific evidence and the actions of business organizations. Few empirical studies have examined the business organizations’ actions taken in response to climate change in Korea. This paper addresses this critical gap in the climate change literature by examining business organizations’ behaviors and identifying the factors influencing their actions. We employ statistical models to compare corporate climate change actions, and we explain their variations using survey data. The results indicate that despite increasing concerns about climate change, businesses have implemented very limited precautionary mitigation and adaptation actions. In addition, the concerns of the businesses about future climate change impact, organizational capacity (leadership, staff capacity, existence of a relevant division or department), and business size are significant factors with respect to the implementation of climate change actions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economic uncertainty and monetary uncertainty are said to affect public’s holding of money in either direction. In this paper, we consider the Korean demand for money, and after including two GARCH-based measures of output uncertainty and monetary uncertainty, we show that both measures exert significant effects on the demand for money in Korea in the short run. However, only the adverse effects of output uncertainty lasts into the long run. Indeed, including the two uncertainty measures yield a stable demand for money in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the demand function for gasoline in Korea using quarterly data covering the period 1991–2010. The long-run and short-run elasticities of demand with respect to gasoline price and national income are empirically examined using a co-integration and error correction model (ECM). Gasoline demand is relatively elastic to price and income change in both the long run and short run, and each elasticity is higher in the long run than in the short run. Moreover, gasoline demand response to price is higher than to income. This implies that a price demand-side management policy can be quite effective in Korea. Especially, the limitation of price change is important to the stabilization of gasoline demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offering a family involvement program is a typical approach for helping students with or at-risk for emotional and behavioral disorders and other behaviors of concern. The present paper examines evidence-based parental involvement programs in the United States and Korea. Several differences exist between programs in the two countries including evaluation, collaboration, the support of the government and related institutions, differences in perception of administrators, and the professional staff. The authors suggested several recommendations including considering the requirements of guidance for developing effective programs, designing ways to evaluate programs, encouraging collaboration, preparing qualified professional staff, and developing culturally appropriate programs for children and youth with special needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces a series of papers about construction management and economics. The first paper examines multicriteria models used in operations research. The authors found that the state of the art is to combine a utility function with a social-welfare function. The second paper investigates the housebuilding industry in Korea. The third paper presents an evaluation method for monitoring the performance of health care facilities. The method comprises component performance, building systems performance and a high-level Building Performance Indicator. The fourth paper describes a method that addresses weaknesses related to company-level dynamic cash flow. The fifth paper proposes a less restrictive approach to measure total factor productivity growth for the construction industry. The sixth paper analyzes the relationship between the construction sector and economic development in Taiwan. The seventh paper analyzed the kinds of accidents that occur in materials handling at construction sites. The eighth paper describes the development and the validation of a neural network model to help contractors in deciding whether or not to bid. The ninth paper investigates the relationship between the characteristics of construction personnel and their recognition of safety signs and symbols.

This paper exploits an international bilateral data set over the period 1963-1998 to investigate the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign-educated labor in an FDI host country. Workers educated abroad acquire country-specific human capital that is more productive in the host country of study. A foreign subsidiary sharing a parent firm's technology will invest more if it has more foreign-educated labor, since it can utilize this labor more productively because of the country-specific human capital. Consistent with our predictions, our empirical findings show that foreign-educated labor accounted for a sizable portion of growth in FDI flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the study on the business cycles in Asia conducted by Yongseung Jung and colleagues. The author states that the comparative method used in the study to examine business cycles in Asia and Latin America may be strengthened with the addition of financial variables to the system. Furthermore, the author says that it will be worthwhile to estimate durable-goods through empirical analysis for other Asian economies and not in Korean economy only.

kwong e.w.-y., pang s.m.-c., choi p.-p. & wong t.k.-s. (2010) Influenza vaccine preference and uptake among older people in nine countries. Journal of Advanced Nursing 66(10), 2297–2308. Aim. This paper is a report of a study delineating factors that influence older people’s preferences and uptake of the influenza vaccine in nine countries. Background. Vaccination uptake for the aging population in many countries still remains below the World Health Organization recommended rate. Older people who perceive higher susceptibility to and severity of influenza, and more benefits from vaccination and action cues prompting vaccination, tend to accept the vaccine, but those with more perceived barriers to vaccination are less likely to accept it. Method. A total of 208 older people from China, Indonesia, Turkey, Korea, Greece, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria were recruited to 14 vaccinated and 12 unvaccinated focus groups. They shared their experiences of influenza, and influenza vaccination, and promotion of influenza vaccination in focus groups. The data were collected in 2007. Findings. We identified five themes and generated a hypothetical framework for in-depth understanding of vaccination behaviour among older people. Participants’ vaccine preferences were determined by their behavioural beliefs in vaccination, which were based on their probability calculation of susceptibility to and severity of influenza and vaccine effectiveness, and their utility calculation of vaccine, healthcare and social costs. Action cues prompting vaccination and vaccine access further affected the vaccine uptake of participants with vaccine preferences. Vaccination coverage was likely to be higher in the countries where normative beliefs in favour of vaccination had formed. Conclusion. The hypothetical framework can be used to guide healthcare providers in developing strategies to foster normative beliefs of older people in vaccination, provide effective action cues and promote vaccine access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the roles of firm size, age, and industrial networking in determining firm growth. Analyses using the 2-year panel data of 7,889 Korean manufacturing firms between 1994 and 2003 confirm that firm size and age have significant negative effects on firm growth and significant positive impacts on firm survival. R&D and export activities are found to facilitate both firm growth and survival. The primary focus of this study is to examine the effects of industrial networking, such as subcontracting and clustering, on firm growth. The results show that subcontracting does not yield any positive effect for firm growth, but encumbers survival, which may be accounted for by the high subcontracting intensity among small firms. Clustering, on the other hand, is found to promote firm growth and survival. There is, however, little evidence that such a positive effect of clustering is derived from network externalities through cooperation and competition among firms in a cluster per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the “varieties of capitalism” debate, scholars have paid considerable attention to the question of whether Korea and Japan have left behind their interventionist political economy for neo-liberal reform. In this paper, we re-examine the scholarly consensus that Korea has become a neo-liberal state, while Japan has not changed much. On the basis of our comparison of the extent of the two countries' neo-liberal reforms using the “business systems framework” developed by Witt, we demonstrate that neo-liberal reforms observed in Korea and Japan are not substantially different enough to warrant the view that the two countries have taken divergent paths of institutional development. With this finding, we call for further empirical study, including the development and use of more qualitative data. We suggest that the future direction research should take on this issue in order to make theoretical contributions to the existing literature on institutional change and continuity in “non-liberal” capitalist countries. We do this by offering some methods in which future researchers could identify necessary and sufficient causes of Korea's and Japan's neo-liberal (or non-neo-liberal) shift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze the nexus between economic crises, market oriented reforms, and democratization in Indonesia and Korea since the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. I provide some support for the hypothesis that democracies are better able to survive economic crises than authoritarian regimes. In both countries democratization facilitated a crisis resolution strategy based on market oriented reforms. However, I assert that in the long run the social consequences of market-oriented reforms tend to undermine democratization partly because both are so closely linked and the majority of the population sees them as one. This process does not necessarily destroy democracies but it leaves them more vulnerable to possible external shocks in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversified business groups are significant players of the competitive landscape in many emerging economies. While traditional studies generally considered business groups as a departure from economic efficiency, recent research has provided a new understanding of the importance of this organizational form. This paper proposes an evolutionary model of business groups in emerging economies by tracing the evolution and restructuring of business groups in Korea. However, the perception of such large and diverse business groups has changed quite dramatically in the more recent period.

Focusing on a product, this paper reconstructs the concept of technological systems first introduced by Carlsson and Stankiewicz (1991) in this Journal. Based on the model, we analyze the evolution process and performance of Korea's technological system for computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools as a catching-up case. The study shows that the length of ‘learning period’ for the system was substantial, even in a catching-up case. Especially, in the Korean case, the government played a ‘macro-entrepreneurial’ role in the molding of the technological system by giving legitimacy to the system, by mobilizing a nation-specific industrial organization of Chaebol system, and by enhancing the academia-industry-research institution links. Keywords: Evolution; Technological systems; Technological infrastructure; Institutional infrastructure; CNC machine tools [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The purpose of this paper is to review policy initiatives [concerning migrant remittances] in six major labour-exporting countries in Asia--Bangladesh, India, Korea, the Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Where relevant, the experience of these countries will be compared and contrasted with those of labour-exporting countries in other parts of the world....[The author concludes that] the imposition of mandatory remittance requirements on migrant workers is unlikely to enhance remittance inflows unless the government of the labour-exporting country effectively controls the migration process." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA), (excerpt)

Feeding operations are substantial on livestock farms, besides being potentially expensive. Feeding efficiency has been considered a major influence on profits in the livestock industry. Indeed, feed costs are shown to be the largest single item of production cost in Korea. To promote production and use of domestic forage, the Korean government has enforced the forage base expansion program that strengthens the competitiveness of the livestock industry by reducing the production cost. The forage base expansion program includes three main policies: subsidized forage production, support for processing and distribution, and expanding land for forage production. This paper investigates the influence of the government’s policies often conjectured to have pronounced effects on forage production. To evaluate the forage policies, this paper uses a path-analysis approach linking government spending on forage base expansion programs and feed costs. Results indicate that the Korean government’s spending on supporting domestic forage production results in a decrease in the ratio of forage expenses to total feed cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"This paper examines the urban growth of 33 small and intermediate Korean cities during 1975-1980 from the ecological perspective. Using the multiple regression analysis, population growth of a city is measured by variables such as industrial structure, distance from a metropolitan city, and educational level of residents in a corresponding city. At the present development stage in Korea, those cities whose industrial structure is more specialized in the transformative sector rather than other sectors have grown more rapidly. The closeness to a metropolitan city and the educational level of residents for each city strongly influence urban growth of small cities.", (excerpt)

We investigated the effect of foreign exchange rate in a correlation analysis of the Korean stock market using both random matrix theory and minimum spanning tree. We collected data sets which were divided into two types of stock price, the original stock price in Korean Won and the price converted into US dollars at contemporary foreign exchange rates. Comparing the random matrix theory based on the two different prices, a few particular sectors exhibited substantial differences while other sectors changed little. The particular sectors were closely related to economic circumstances and the influence of foreign financial markets during that period. The method introduced in this paper offers a way to pinpoint the effect of exchange rate on an emerging stock market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new presidential administration of the Republic of Korea will be launched in February 2013. We hope that the Government effectively administers national affairs as well as health care affairs under the new paradigm. In this paper, I make three proposals for the new administration. First, the new government must overcome the wave of aging, the low birth rate, and low economic growth rate. The aging society increases health care demands, but the low birth rate and low economic growth rate decrease the capability to financially underwrite these demands. Furthermore, Korea faces the unification issue as the mission of the era. The economic burden of unification would be bigger than that faced by Germany. The government must prepare rapidly with a step-bystep plan for this approaching situation. Second, the new administration must solve the top-priority policy problems that are derived not only from the existing problems of the "garbage can model," but also from priority setting with an overall and systematic view. These top-priority health policy problems are the high suicide rate, over-utilization of doctors' visits and length of hospital stay, and high out-of-pocket health care fees. The extreme phenomenon of high out-of-pocket costs affects a high percentage of households with catastrophic medical costs, which is about 3%, the highest level among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Third, the policy approach of the new administration must be not unilateral, but bilateral: efficiency and equity of policies, support and regulation of policy tool, demand-side and supply-side management of healthcare utilization, and service benefits and monetary benefits of Health Insurance. In the past, the main approach of healthcare policy has depended on regulation, supply-side control, and service benefits. The administration should pursue a balance of left and right approaches, regardless of which political party wins. I hope that the new government will overcome these challenges in a turbulent era, solve top-priority problems first, and approach all of this with a new paradigm as new wine must be poured into new wineskins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on an article about the relationship between financialization and research and development (R&D) investments in Korean corporations. He notes that R&D investments are determined by tax incentives, patents, intellectual property rights protection and corporate structure. The impact of the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the size of corporations and the concentration of corporate ownership on R&D investments is discussed by author.

To estimate the value of leisure time, this paper suggests the enodogenous switching model which incorporates individual's willingness to take more leisure time. The empirical results show that the value of leisure time in terms of willingly give-up shadow wage is greater than the market wage by 9% in Korea. The Korea economic crisis in 1997 seems to reduce the value of leisure time nearly 14%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several abstracts on economical topics. The article "Determinants and Consequences of Promotions in Britain," using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey 1991-1995, finds that 9 percent of all workers report a promotion at their firm in any given year and that promotions account for approximately 36 percent of total job turnover, with small gender differences. The article "Wages and Politics: Evidence from the Norwegian Public Sector," presents empirical results for wage setting in the Norwegian local and central public sector. The article "Family Finance and New Business Start-ups," identifies the key determinants of family lending using a unique data on Asian entrepreneurs in Great Britain. The article "Do High Interest Rates Appreciate Exchange Rates During Crisis? The Korean Evidence," uses Korean high-frequency data during the crisis and its aftermath to examine the relationship between the increase in interest rates and the behaviour of exchange rates.

This paper investigates the changes in the structure of the household expenditure on telecommunications services and its relationships with other existing expenditures in South Korea employing the average household monthly expenditure from 1998.Q1 to 2014.4Q. The linear approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) is implemented in both short-run and long-run models. The short-run relationship is estimated using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) with first differenced series of data, and the long-run relationship is examined through a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Both sets of empirical results suggest that the household demand for telecommunications services is income inelastic over the whole analysis period, and the absolute value of the own price elasticity noticeably increased in the period of 2007.Q1–2014.Q4. Additionally, the estimations from the VECM LA/AIDS model suggest that the relationship between telecommunications services and other existing goods/services such as public transportations, cultural services, books and private education had a complementary relationship in the early period of the Internet and mobile services. However, a substitution relationship has tended to be reinforced after the Internet and mobile services came into widespread use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimated the amount of carbon sequestered by and emitted from tourism activities related to the Oak Valley resort, a ski and golf resort located in a temperate secondary forest in the City of Wonju, Korea, in 2006. Annual carbon sequestration by a forest in the resort was estimated using discrete-return light detection and ranging (LiDAR) remote sensing data, and annual carbon emissions from the resort tourism were estimated using visitor survey and energy consumption data. The total annual carbon emissions from the resort tourism were estimated to be 8453 Mg C yr −1 (9.2 kg C yr −1 visitor −1 ). Electricity consumption by resort facilities, fuel consumption for the transportation of resort visitors, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) consumptions for heating were the major sources of carbon emissions. The forest in the resort sequestered 6703 Mg C yr −1 (7.3 kg C yr −1 visitor −1 ), which offset 79.3% of the total carbon emissions from the resort tourism activities. The resort tourism had the net carbon deficit of 1750 Mg C yr −1 (1.9 kg C yr −1 visitor −1 ). From these results, we drew several policy implications for low carbon sustainable tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]