• FLOWER RESEARCH JOURNAL
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.186-192
• /
• 2010

An infrared heating system, installed in a small venlo-type glasshouse ($280m^2$) in Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Korea, was used to investigate its heating effect with potted Phalaenopsis, Schefflera arboricola 'Hongkong', Ficus elastica 'Variegata', and Rosa hybrida 'Yellow King' as the test plants. Temperature changes in test plants with the system turned 'On' and 'Off' were measured by using an infrared camera and the consumption of electricity by this infrared heating system was measured and analyzed. In potted Phalaenopsis, when the set air temperature of the greenhouse was $18^{\circ}C$, temperature of leaves and the growing medium were $22.8{\sim}27^{\circ}C$ and $21.3{\sim}24.3^{\circ}C$, respectively. In such tall plants as Schefflera arboricola 'Hongkong' and Ficus elastica 'Variegata', the upper part showed the highest temperature of 24.0 and $26.9^{\circ}C$, respectively. From the results of temperature change measurements, the plant temperatures were near or above the set point temperatures with some fluctuations depending on the position or distance from the infrared heating system. When air temperature between night and dawn dropped sharply, plant temperatures were maintained close to the set temperature ($18^{\circ}C$). There was a significant difference between 'On' and 'Off' states of the infrared heating system in average temperatures of root zone and leaf: 21.8 and $17.8^{\circ}C$ with the system 'On' and 20.4 and $15.5^{\circ}C$ with the system 'Off', respectively, in a cut rose Rosa hybrida 'Yellow King'. The heating load was about $24,850{\sim}35,830kcal{\cdot}h^{-1}$, which comes to about 27,000~40,000 won in Korean currency when calculated in terms of the cost of heating by a hot water heating system heated by petroleum. The cost for heating by the infrared heating system was about 35% of that of a hot water heating system. With the infrared heating system, the air temperature during the night was maintained slightly lower than the set point air temperature, probably due to the lack of air tightness of the glasshouse. Therefore, glasshouses with an infrared heating system requires further investigation including the installation space of the heat-emitting units, temperature sensor positions, and convection.

• Korean small business review
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.85-102
• /
• 2009

With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.211-220
• /
• 1976

The objective of this paper is to summarize and disicuss the results of studies for the prediction of fertilizer demands up to the year of 2000, from the agromic biew points. 1. The approximated demands of fertilizers figured out from the view point of nutrient requirement and fertilizer efficiency of major crops are 1,162,000M/T (N;554,100 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 360,100 M/T and $K_2O$, 247,000 M/T) at 1980, 1,471,400 M/T (N: 694,800 M/T, $P_2O_5$;465,400M/T and $K_2O$ ;311,200 M/T) at 1990 and 1,764,00 M/T (N;812,500 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 592,300 M/T and $K_2O$;359,200 M/T) at 2000${\cdots}{\cdots}$ (Approximation I) 2. Upon the basis of approximation on the yield levels of major crops per unit area and on the expansion of arable land, the demands of fertilizers at the years of 1980, 1990 and 2000 are predicted as 1,149,300 M/T (N;603,700 M/T $P_2O_5$; 305,500 M/T and $K_2O$, 240,100 M/T) 1,551,100 M/T(N:814,700M/T, $P_2O_5$;412,300 M/T and $K_2O$;324,00 M/T) and 2,253,800 M/T (N;1,183,800M/T, $P_2O_5$; 586,400M/T and $K_2O$, 470,900 M/T), respectively${\cdots}{\cdots}$(Approximation II) 3. When the recent relationships between the increases in yeid of major crops and the amounts of fertilizers for those crops per unit area are brought into consideration for the estimation of future demands of fertilizers, the predicted demands at the years of 1980, 1990 and 2000 are 1,287.600 M/T (N;677,100 M/T, $P_2O_5$; 342,000 M/T, and $K_2O$;268,500 M/T), 2,085,600M/T (N;1,096,700 M/T, $P_2O_5$;533,900 M/T, and $K_2O$;435,000 M/T and 3,380,600 M/T (N;1,777,800M/T, $P_2O_5$;897,800M/T and $K_2O$;705,000M/T) respectively (Approximation III) 4. Approximation I will be closer estimate under such condition that only rice will maintain self suficiency and other food crops will be covered by domestic production by around 50 percent, which is not desirable situation. 5. When higher self suficiency leveles of major food crops are sought through the introduction of improved varieties and expansion of cropping area and arable land by increased land utilization and reclamation of hillside land and tidal land, the Approximations II and III will become close to reality, If improved fertilizers and improved method of fertilizer applications are widely applied at the farmers fields to increase the fertilizer efficiency the former will be closer figure, if not, the latter may be better estimates.