• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.50
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• pp.61-85
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• 2002

Using the 2001 Family Income and Expenditure Survey micro-data, this study analyses the anti-poverty effectiveness of public and private income transfers. In this study, the anti-poverty effectiveness of income transfers is summarized in two ways; 1) the poverty reduction effect of the income transfers, and 2) the poverty reduction efficiency of the income transfers. The poverty reduction effects are measured with several poverty indices including the head-count ratio, poverty gap, and Sen index. Using Beckerman's model, this study also analyses the poverty reduction efficiency of income transfers. This analysis documents substantial differences in the anti-poverty effectiveness of public and private income transfers. Although the private income transfers contribute more to reduce the head-count poverty ratio and Sen index than public income transfers, their differences are significantly reduced after the enactment of National Basic Livelihood Security Act. The results also reveal that the anti-poverty effectiveness of public and private income transfers vary by the types of families. In families headed by elderly and working aged, private income transfers have more anti-poverty effectiveness. But, public income transfers contribute more to reduce poverty than private income transfers among families headed by single adults with children. The results of this study suggest that recent changes in anti-poverty policies in Korea have been strengthened the Government's responsibility. And more importantly, to effectively reduce poverty among the poor families, anti-poverty polices must be designed to consider different family types.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.39
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• pp.157-179
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• 1999

This study is an empirical research to analyze how many private income transfers in Korea decrease poverty rate, to compare the effects of private income transfers' decreasing poverty rate with income classes. This study has utilised the Family Income and Expenditure Survey to estimate the poverty ratio in urban areas and Unemployment Household Survey which Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs has investigated at 1998. Majour findins are these. First, Sizes of private transfers incomes are much than that of public transfers incomes. The rates in receiving private transfers income are ten times higher than that in receiving public transfers income among urban worker's household. The mean of private transfer income are about six times larger than that of public transfer income among urban worker's household. Second, the effects of private income transfers' reducing poverty rates are not large. After private transfers, urbarn workers' households are about 10 per cent away from its poverty line, and unemploy households are only 3 per cent away from its poverty line. Third, especially, private income transfers are hardly reducing poverty rates among extreme poverty class. After private transfers, urban workers' households which their incomes are within low 5%, are not away from its poverty line at all.

• Journal of Consumption Culture
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.213-247
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze the economic structures of low-income households, and to provide the policy suggestions for their economic well-being. The data for this study was from the 2009 year of the Korea Welfare Panel Survey (KOWEPS). The results are as follows: As for income structure, the low-income households had lower amounts in earned income, business and side-work income, and property income, but a higher amount in transfer income. They had a lower amount in private transfer income, but a higher amount in public transfer income. They had the highest rate of transfer income, showing that the rate of public transfer income was higher than that of private transfer income, and the government assistance was the highest rate in public transfer income. The households in extreme poverty had the lowest amounts in earned income, financial income, private transfer income, but the highest amount in public transfer income. The households in poverty had the lowest amount in transfer income. The households in extreme poverty, poverty and near poverty showed the highest rate in transfer income. As for asset structure, the low-income households had a lower amount in every type of assets. They showed the highest rate in total debt, and had a higher rate in housing asset, but lower rates in real-estate asset, financial asset and other asset. The households in extreme poverty had a lower amount in every type of assets than the households in near poverty. Three types of the low-income households showed the highest rate in housing asset, but the households in extreme poverty was the highest among them. As for expenditure structure, the low-income households had lower amounts in all of the expenditure items. They showed the highest rate in food expenditure, the second highest in other consumption expenditure. The households in extreme poverty showed lower amounts in almost all of the expenditure items than the households in near poverty, but the households in extreme poverty showed a higher amount in monthly rent than the households in neat poverty. Three types of the low-income households showed the highest rate in food expenditure. The expenditure rates of food, monthly rent and light·heat·water for households in extreme poverty were higher than those for the households in near poverty.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.54
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• pp.321-345
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• 2003

Aggregate income stability depends heavily on labor market institutions that stabilize or de-stabilize earnings. But, with the expansion of sate welfare programmes, public income transfers are also important sources of income stability for individual and families. Moreover, income stability is determinant factor of individual and family well being, there are another strategies of income stability in society. Family-based and community-based strategies are particularly important. Accordingly, the distribution of income stability in a given society depends on such institutional arrangements as market, family, state, and community. The purpose of this study is to analyse the income stabilizing role of family, state, and community. I found that stabilizing effect of the family and community was very strong in Korea. When institutional features of labor market and the state leave individuals exposed to market risk, they may be respond by relying more on family-based or community-based strategies of income stabilization. But, I can't deny the possibility of an inadequacy of these strategies in according to the rapid changes of family structures and informal networks. Therefore, state-based strategies of income stabilization should be more strengthened in Korea.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.271-297
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• 2005

Since the 1980s, the western welfare states have experienced a wide spectrum of socio-economic changes; changes in population composition, the economic globalization, the post-industrialization, an increasing flexibility in the labor market. etc. This study examines the trend of poverty in welfare states, and analyzes how those socio-economic changes are related to it. For these purposes, this study first calculates the poverty indices for several years in 10 welfare states using the Luxembourg Income Study database, and then decomposes the index by subpopulation and income sources. Major findings of this study can be summarized as follows. First of all, the welfare state in general has experienced an increasing trend in the degree of poverty since the 1980s. In particular, poverty has greatly intensified in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Many other welfare states including Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Norway have also experienced substantial increases in poverty. The increasing trend of poverty is not wholly due to changes in population composition such as increases in the aging population and one-parent(mother) families. Contrary to the traditional belief, these population groups are not as much poor as the working-age population. In particular, the degree of poverty in the elderly is less severe than in the working-age group. Furthermore, since the 1980s the market income poverty in the aging population has shown a decreasing trend in many welfare states. The degree and trend of poverty in one-parent families vary greatly across countries, owing to the labor market and income transfer policies. The most important reason for the increasing poverty trend in the welfare state is that the degree of poverty has been deepening in the working-age population. Especially, the market income poverty of the working-age population has considerably increased in every country except the Netherlands. Structural changes in the economy and the labor market may drive the increasing trend of poverty. Further studies and deliberate anti-poverty policies are needed to tackle the factors relating to the increase in the market income poverty.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.71-130
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• 2008

Using data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Study (KLIPS), this study investigates private income transfers in Korea, where adult children have undertaken the most responsibility of supporting their elderly parents without well-established social safety net for the elderly. According to the KLIPS data, three out of five households provided some type of support for their aged parents and two out of five households of the elderly received financial support from their adult children on a regular base. However, the private income transfers in Korea are not enough to alleviate the impact of the fall in the earned income of those who retired and are approaching an age of needing financial assistance from external source. The monthly income of those at least the age of 75, even with the earning of their spouses, is below the staggering amount of 450,000 won, which indicates that the elderly in Korea are at high risk of poverty. In order to analyze microeconomic factors affecting the private income transfers to the elderly parents, the following three samples extracted from the KLIPS data are used: a sample of respondents of age 50 or older with detailed information on their financial status; a five-year household panel sample in which their unobserved family-specific and time-invariant characteristics can be controlled by the fixed-effects model; and a sample of the younger split-off household in which characteristics of both the elderly household and their adult children household can be controlled simultaneously. The results of estimating private income transfer models using these samples can be summarized as follows. First, the dominant motive lies on the children-to-parent altruistic relationship. Additionally, another is based on exchange motive, which is paid to the elderly parents who take care of their grandchildren. Second, the amount of private income transfers has negative correlation with the income of the elderly parents, while being positively correlated with the income of the adult children. However, its income elasticity is not that high. Third, the amount of private income transfers shows a pattern of reaching the highest level when the elderly parents are in the age of 75 years old, following a decreasing pattern thereafter. Fourth, public assistance, such as the National Basic Livelihood Security benefit, appears to crowd out private transfers. Private transfers have fared better than public transfers in alleviating elderly poverty, but the role of public transfers has been increasing rapidly since the welfare expansion after the financial crisis in the late 1990s, so that one of four elderly people depends on public transfers as their main income source in 2003. As of the same year, however, there existed and occupied 12% of the elderly households those who seemed eligible for the National Basic Livelihood benefit but did not receive any public assistance. To remove elderly poverty, government may need to improve welfare delivery system as well as to increase welfare budget for the poor. In the face of persistent elderly poverty and increasing demand for public support for the elderly, which will lead to increasing government debt, welfare policy needs targeting toward the neediest rather than expanding universal benefits that have less effect of income redistribution and heavier cost. Identifying every disadvantaged elderly in dire need for economic support and providing them with the basic livelihood security would be the most important and imminent responsibility that we all should assume to prepare for the growing aged population, and this also should accompany measures to utilize the elderly workforce with enough capability and strong will to work.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.61-85
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• 2014

Lately, as the problem of the aged poverty becomes a big social issue, this paper studies the problem of financial stability with respect to the income and consumption of before-and-after retirement generations. After dividing the data in Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing(KLoSA) into retired and non-retired groups, this study compares the difference among ageing groups by cross analysis and t-test. First, the result tells that the total personal income of retired group is lower than the one of non-retired group. Second, the public pension income benefit ratio of retired group is only 30% of it's total income, and the amount of public pension appears to be 40% of the total pension income. The benefit ratio of the personal pension income is low as about 1% in both groups, The private transfer income of the retired group takes relatively large portion in its total personal income. Third, as people gets older, financial stability gets worse because consumption does not decrease as much as the income decreases. Fourth, it is turned out that the expectation of old life supporting from nation is low in both groups. Fifth, the factors that affects the income of the public pension in the retired group are gender, age, education, and health status, when compared with the factors to the personal total income of the non-retired group. In terms of policy, this paper emphasizes the needs of the intensification of the public pension and the support for the revitalization of the personal pension.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.473-496
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• 2014

This paper intends to test the non-linear relationship between $CO_2$ emissions and income by employing cointegration model of the time-varying income elasticity. We select France, UK, Italy, Japan, US, China, India, Mexico and Korea and use non-parametric time series analysis on each country in order to estimate its own effect of income on $CO_2$ emission. The main results indicate that the $CO_2$ emission-income elasticities vary over time and the income elasticities of the Annex I countries tend to be higher in absolute terms than those of developing countries. In addition, we find that emission-income elasticities decrease for Annex I countries over time, whereas those for developing countries increase.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2008.04a
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• pp.301-314
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• 2008

미국 센서스 뷰로 데이터에 의하여 2차대전 후 민주당정부와 공화당정부의 실질 세전 소득증가율의 차이를 살펴볼 때 민주당정부 기간동안에 계층간의 소득불균형이 시정되면서 저소득계층의 소득증가율이 상대적으로 더 높았음을 알 수 있다. 반면에 공화당정부 기간동안에는 소득불균형이 심화되면서 저소득계층보다 고소득계층의 소득증가율이 더 높았다. 소득계층에서 하위 20%의 계층은 공화당정부의 기간동안에 비하여 민주당정부의 기간에 4배의 높은 소득증가율을 가졌다. 이는 양 정부별 실업률 차이에서 비롯되는 데 민주당정부의 기간 동안에 평균 30% 낮았으며 GDP성장률은 평균 30% 높았음에도 영향을 받은 것으로 판단된다. 이러한 정부별 차이는 1980년대 이후 세후 소득증가율에서도 나타나고 있다. 한편, 실증분석 결과에 따르면 한국의 경우 미국에서와 같이 저소득계층이 고소득계층 보다 거시경제정책에 따른 영향을 더 많이 받고 있음을 알 수 있었으며, 특히 신정부에서는 이전보다 적극적인 통화정책을 적절한 타이밍(timing)으로 실시하여야 할 필요성이 나타났다.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.55-88
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• 2003

When the definition of income and the equivalence scale was applied just as it was in the LIS (Luxembourg Income Study), the adjusted disposable income inequality calculated by Gini coefficients in Korea was 0.358 for the year 2000. Compare to the 1996 figure of 0.298 the increase of income inequality has skyrocketed. In addition, the adjusted market income inequality increased from 0.302 in 1996 to 0.374 in 2000. The disposable income inequality ranked the third and the market income inequality ranked at the mid level in 2000 among OECD countries. One significant finding in this paper was that the difference between the disposable income inequality and market income inequality in Korea is very small compared to those of other OECD countries. The relative poverty ratio, which is calculated by using 40% of the medium income bracket of the disposable income was calculated at 7.6% in 1996 and 11.5% in 2000. The poverty ratio in 2000 for Korea ranked one of the highest in OECD countries, also.