• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.107-127
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• 2016

This paper attempts to investigate determinants of foreign direct investment in transition countries of Mongolia and Central Asia five countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. FDI inflows in this transition economies have been far increasing due to their rapid growth, GDP, gross capital formation, wage, labor force, open trading, infrastructure and natural resources as well as the factors demonstrating the economic variables and political variables of these countries by Vector Error Correction Model. The results of empirical analysis based on data from 1993 to 2013 confirmed that FDI and open trade and gross capital formation and political than GDP, wage, labor force, infrastructure and natural resources had a significant impact on Central Asia and Mongolia. In addition, if Mongolia and Central Asian five countries can maintain the country's economic growth, reduce unemployment level, achieve certain improvements in domesticating new technologies and improving skills and knowledge sphere as well as promoting stable domestic price increase, attracting and improving the FDI by paying more attention to the indicators focusing on country's GDP, wage, labor force, infrastructure and natural resource.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.85-111
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• 2018

This study examines the puzzle of institutional change of irregular worker protection system in Korea through a theory of incremental institutional change. It is the case of "conversion" mode of institutional change that occurs when ambiguous rules permit reinterpretations of rules and regulations for converting functions of institutions into new ones without formal revision. Management sectors with enforcement power have circumvented main rules of high discretion since 2007. In institutional dimension, the extent of irregular workers and the provisions of limit on employment-period and prohibition-correction on discrimination lack sufficient details. In political context, veto possibilities have been downward. Irregular workers were hardly organized independently and two labor union federations mainly composed of regular workers were less receptive to them. Veto possibilities in legislation were also low: the Economic and Social Development Commission ended up in weak labor representation and labor parties in the National Assembly have undergone dissolution.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.420-437
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• 1994

The starting point of the research is the relation between capital restructuring and urban restructuring. The economic restructuring, which has been caused by the economic crisis in the early 1970s in the United States has brought a spatial restructuring at different geographic scales. The degree of the success of urban restructuring is contingent to the local economic and political environments. The local contingent factor such as local politics should not be neglected for investigating the restructuring process. Through the case study of Chicago, the research provides two inconsistencies in applying the structural approach to the local level: first, the lack of the theoretical link between crisis and restructuring; and second, the crucial importance of local politics in shaping urban development.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.494-502
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• 2017

This study examines how the Netherlands and Denmark lowered the increase in income inequality, at a period in time when income inequality in the world was deepening. This study investigates the level and trend of income inequality in the Netherlands and Denmark compared to those in Korea, the United States, Germany and Sweden. Using the method of the decomposition of changes in income inequality, this study identifies which factors are associated with the changes in inequality in these countries. It also explores which labor market policies mitigated inequality in these two countries. One of the major reasons for the reduction in earned income inequality in the Netherlands is the increased participation of women in economic activity through the increase in voluntary part-time working. In particular, the policies designed to promote equal treatment between full-time and non-regular workers contributed to the active participation of women in part-time work. Using active labor market policies, Denmark improved the proficiency of low skilled and low-wage workers, thereby alleviating the wage gap between high-income and low-income workers. Based on the experiences of the Netherlands and Denmark, this study discusses policy directions to mitigate income inequality in Korea.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.69
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• pp.71-110
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• 2015

Beyond the technological behaviorism-oriented notion of prosumers, the current study explores the question of digital creative labour of the youth in the interrelated context of post-capitalist crisis and neoliberal ethos of selfhood. This analysis is situated particularly in the social conflicts and struggles in Korea, where the problems related to the precarization of the younger generation have been increasingly aggravated (in the realm of embodied reality) whereas their digital activities have been highly expressive (in the realm of mediated reality). The contradictions embedded in the question of the labour of the youth are delineated in the respect of the subjectivities of young free labour, or 'digital creative labour' in proposed terms: the precarious young free labour in Korea is the compound of social fragmentation, economic polarization, expansion of cognitive and emotion labour, boom of hedonistic consumerism, economic-cultural celebration of creativity and self-entrepreneurship, technological saturation of digital media, subjective/collective affects around excitement and ambition but also of anxiety and fear. The ambivalence and complexity of the young free labour is converged at the emergence of homo-economicus (Michel Foucault) through the subjectivation of the social (con)fusion of post-capitalist crisis and neoliberal governmentality of selfhood.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.105-137
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• 2013

This paper proposes to examine the relationship between the two trade unions of Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) - those of the regular workers and of the in-house subcontract workers - around the issue of converting irregular workers to regular ones, which has been a social issue for a long time, and, furthermore, to find a desirable solution. The politics of the in-house subcontracting rotate around three axes: the conflictive collusion between the company and the regular workers'union regarding the internal labor market; the exclusion and resistance between the company and the subcontract workers'union; and the solidaristic conflict relationship between the two unions. After the final decree by the supreme court in 2012 the conflict and collusion/solidarity relationship of the three social actors have been amplified in scale - the continuous limping of the special bargaining between the company and the unions, the intensified conflict between the company and the subcontract workers'union, and the crisis of the collusion between the branches of the two unions are all evidence of this. A clue to the solution to the issues of in-house subcontracting in HMC can be found through reestablishment of the relationship among the three actors. In order to solve the in-house subcontracting issues in HMC, phased and lawful switching from irregular to regular positions, improvement of working conditions for the irregular workers, integration of the two unions (realization of 'one company one union'), and negotiated flexibility in the internal labor market will be required. Also to be considered are installation of a special committee for the issue, and utilization of external consultants. The result would be the possibility for the corporate labor market of HMC to be composed of regular workers, legal contract workers and directly-employed contract workers, which could be realized through bilateral relations of 'the labor and management conflict partnership'.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.324-339
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of cyber communities composed of migrant workers from communities without propinquity in Korea. Its methods are both qualitative and quantitative. It further seeks to discover the relationship between the social capital formed and reproduced within these cyber communities and participants' cultural adaptation to Korean society. The study revealed that ethnic and non-ethnic communities differed in terms of strength of cohesion, space constraints, and links with the outside world. The former showed characteristics of a localized community type. The main motivations for migrant workers' participation in the ethnic cyber community were communication and friendship rather than cooperation and sharing among members. They usually used cyber communication media to communicate with one another. Conversely, the latter showed characteristics of an integrative type. Despite the difficulties in applying for membership and information provided in Korean, a high percentage of migrant workers participated in the community to obtain crucial information. The results did not show a significant correlation between social capital and migrant workers' traits within the cyber community, while a strong correlation emerged among four factors of social capital: faith, norms, networking, and political participation. The study showed that social capital in the cyber community was in direct proportion to an integrative type of cultural adaptation to Korean society. In particular, there was a strong connection between the cultural adaptation exhibited by members of the migrant subculture and their participation in discussions on political issues and human rights, with some migrants even functioning as agents of social change as participants in citizens' movements. The findings suggest that the cyber community facilitates the migrant subculture's communication with and integration into the indigenous Korean culture. Migrant workers' participation in the cyber community is therefore validated as an instrumental practice for members of this subculture to adapt to Korean society.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.35
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• pp.427-451
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is (1) to contrast the welfare state formation in Korea with that in Western European nations, and (2) to examine the historical peculiarities of the Korean welfare state formation process. For the analysis, this study uses' contrast of context' logic of comparative history and contrast the process of (1)modern state formation (2) civil society development (3) interventionist state evolution of Korea with those of Western European nations. The findings of this study are as follows: First, the distingushing role of nation state as welfare provider is very different. It is attributed to the difference in the traditional dominance structure and in the nation-bulding process of each case. Second, class cleavage of the Western Eeuropean nations has been continually mobilized for political action and converted into political resources, while it is impossible to achieve such results in Korea which has continued labor excusive regime. Third, the institutionalization patterns of welfare politics are different. In Western Eeuropean nations, public welfare benefits have been able to produce welfare coalitions and politics of solidarity. By contrast, since welfare have been thoroughly depoliticized and informalized in Korea, voters and political parties have not been able to make issues of welfare problem Due to these historical peculiarities, it seems to be impossible that Korea's underdeveloped public welfare could be changeable in near future.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.79-115
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• 2012

In the study, we try to get reliable estimates of intergenerational income mobility in Korea. At first, we show that the low estimates of previous studies are mainly due to sample selection problem. The direct estimations using OLS after correcting this problem show higher values than previous estimates. We also compute the attenuation bias by decomposing the variances of earnings into the variances of permanent and transitory components of earnings by the results of the regression. Additionally, we try to estimate the range of intergenerational mobility by comparing the OLS results with the results of the two samples instrumental variable estimation and the three samples instrumental variable estimation. The results of these estimations are a little higher than or similar to OLS results.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.65-87
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• 1993

본고(本稿)는 빈곤문제(貧困問題)를 둘러싼 새로운 시각(視角)을 설명하고 빈곤대책(貧困對策)의 방향전환을 촉구하기 위해서 집필되었다. 복지차원(福祉次元)의 부조(扶助)에 의존하기보다는 스스로의 노동(勞動)에 의해 자립(自立)할 수 있도록 도와주는 것이 최선(最善)의 빈곤대책(貧困對策)이라고 보는 시각(視角)인 것이다. 세계은행(世界銀行) 둥이 빈곤대책(貧困對策)을 보더라도 가능한 한 자신의 노력(努力)과 노동(勞動)에 의해 자립(自立)할 수 있어야 하며 또한 그러한 기회가 최대한 보장되어야 한다는 점이 부각되고 있다. 사회부조(社會扶助)의 대상자들인 빈민(貧民)들이 개인적(個人的)으로나 자발적(自發的)인 조직화에 의해 시장경제(市場經濟)에 참여하여 적극적인 삶의 추구를 도모할 때 이는 취업증가를 통한 소득증가(所得增加), 나아가서 지역개발(地域開發) 및 국가경제성장(國家經濟成長)에도 기여하게 될 것이다. 더불어 사회적(社會的) 안정(安定) 및 정치적(政治的) 기반형성(基盤形成) 등 바람직한 외부효과(外部效果)를 창출할 가능성이 높게 된다. 본고(本稿)는 태동되기 시작한 빈민들의 생산협동조합운동(生産協同組合運動)에 초점을 맞추어 지역사회에 근거를 둔 경제공동체사업(經濟共同體事業)의 활성화를 강조하고 있다. 이로써 취업기회(就業機會)가 확충되고 지역개발(地域開發)이 촉진되며 그들의 소득증가(所得增加)를 통하여 탈빈곤(脫貧困)에도 도움을 줄 수 있을 것이므로 빈곤대책(貧困對策)의 우선순위(優先順位)가 여기에 두어져야 할 것이라고 제안하고 있다. 조금이라도 일할 수 있는 능력(能力)이 있다면 빈민(貧民)들은 협동조합(協同組合)을 결성하여 자립(自立)할 수 있도록 스스로 노력해 나가야 할 것인바, 이에 대하여 정부는 새마을금고(金庫) 등을 통한 금융지원(金融支援)과 조세감면(租稅減免)을 통하여 조직화를 지원하는 방향으로 인센티브를 제공해야 할 것이다.