• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.72-113
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• 2020

This study investigates the relationship between mineral exports to China, North Korea's most important source of foreign currency acquisition, and its imports of various items from China from the first quarter of 1995 through to the third quarter of 2019. The results from a cointegration analysis suggest that there exists a long-run equilibrium relationship between mineral exports and imports of food, fuel, and some intermediate goods, such as industrial supplies, parts, and accessories. The results from a vector autoregression using first-differenced variables indicate that the short-run relationship between mineral exports and imports is different between the period before and after the third quarter of 2010. Prior to structural changes, i.e., before the third quarter of 2010, import shocks affected mineral exports. However, after the third quarter of 2010, an increase in mineral exports led to an increase in the import of vehicles, intermediate goods, and luxury goods. This paper shows both the possibilities and the limits that mineral exports can contribute to North Korea's economic growth. The results, which show that mineral exports have a long-run relationship with intermediate goods, such as industrial supplies, parts and accessories, imply that mineral exports to China could have a positive effect on the North Korean economy. However, the fact that mineral exports do not have any significant effect on the import of machinery and equipment, which helps the accumulation of capital formation, shows that mineral exports have a limited effect on inducing long-term growth in the North Korean economy.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.1-38
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• 2020

In this research, we explore the effects of changes in industrial structure due to industrial restructuring on employment and growth in the Korean economy. To that end, we first investigate the impact of industrial restructuring on employment through Lilien's sectoral shift hypothesis, considering the dependence of industrial restructuring on business cycles. As a result of the analysis, we find that changes in the industrial structure have exerted a short-term effect of increasing unemployment, and that the effects of industrial restructuring are even greater during the economic downturn period. In light of these points, Lilien's sectoral shift hypothesis seems to be valid in Korea. Next, we examine the effect of industrial restructuring on economic growth in Korea by analyzing which one, between the Kuznetz hypothesis and the Baumol effect, is dominant. Empirical results reveal that the mid- to long-term effect of industrial restructuring on GDP growth is significant, which is in accordance with the Kuznets hypothesis, where resource allocation along with industrial restructuring to sectors with high productivity spurs economic growth.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.71-123
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• 2021

In this study, we present a methodology and model to estimate land prices and the value of land assets in North Korea in the absence of any data about land characteristics from North Korean authorities. Using this framework, we experimentally make market price-based estimates for land assets across the entire urban area of North Korea. First, we estimate the determinants of land prices in South Korea using data on market prices of land from the late 1970s, when it was estimated that the income level gap between South Korea and North Korea wasn't relatively large, and from the early 1980s, when urbanization levels in both of them were similar. Second, we calculate land prices and their relative ratios for each city and urban area in North Korea around 2015 by substituting proxy variables of determinants of land prices derived through a geographic information analysis of North Korea into the function of land prices that we have already estimated. Finally, we estimate the value of land assets in urban areas across North Korea by combining the ratio of housing transaction prices surveyed in several cities in North Korea with the relative prices estimated in this research. As a result, land prices in urban areas in North Korea, looking at the relative ratio of price by city, are estimated to be the highest, at 100.00, in Tongdaewon district of Pyongyang, and to be the lowest, at 1.70, in Phungso county, Ryanggang Province. Meanwhile, the value of land assets in urbanized areas was estimated at $21.6 billion in 2015, which was 1.2 to 1.3 times the GDP of North Korea that year. This ratio is similar to South Korea's in the 1978-1980 period, when the South Korean economy grew at an average rate of 6%. Considering North Korea's growth rate of about 1% in the 2013-2014 period, its ratio of land assets to GDP appears very high.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.96-131
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• 2019

Initially entering into the job market during hard times with unfavorable market institutions has a persistent, negative effect on young workers' subsequent employment. This paper analyzes hysteresis in youth unemployment by using a composite fixed-effect panel data model. Data sets for the age-cohort unemployment rate and for labor market institutions are constructed from OECD statistics from 21 advanced economies, including Korea, from 1985 to 2017, and are then readjusted to match with the peculiarities of the Korean market. In Korea, with a less-aggressive stance on active labor market policy spending, a male worker who experiences a one percentage point higher youth unemployment rate when he was 20- to 29-years-old has a 0.146 percentage point higher unemployment rate at the ages of 30-to 34-years-old and a 0.035 percentage point higher unemployment rate at the age of 35- to 39-years-old. These figures are larger than those in most countries that have more aggressive spending schemes. These findings point out that hysteresis in the Korean labor market can be mitigated by expanding active labor market policy spending more aggressively and more effectively.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.1-36
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• 2018

When it comes to explaining the relationship between inventory investment and business fluctuations, the production smoothing theory and the stock-out avoidance theory take contradictory stances. Decision-making related to inventory investments of corporations is thought to be influenced by both motives, but the relative sizes or directions of their respective influences can differ depending upon the phase of the business cycle. Against this backdrop, this paper differs from existing studies in that it theoretically tests the relative significances of the production smoothing and stock-out avoidance motives in the inventory investment dynamics, while placing its analytical focus on determining the existence and patterns of the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment over the business cycle phases. To this end this paper sets up a non-linear model that is expanded from the existing linear inventory investment model, and checks whether its predictive power is better than that of the existing model. The results of analysis confirm the nature of the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment over the business cycle phases. A stock-out avoidance motive appears but there is no significant production smoothing motive in boom times. In downturns, in contrast, the stock-out avoidance motive is insignificant, but a quality of asymmetric dynamics in which changes in inventory cause the deepening of recessions, due to the non-convexity of production costs proposed by Ramey (1991), is detected. This paper confirms that a model considering the asymmetric dynamics of inventory investment can have better predictive power than one that does not consider it, through within-sample and out-of-sample predictions and various predictive power tests. These research results are expected to be useful for economic forecasting, through their enhancement of the understandings of the inventory investment dynamics and of the nature of its business cycle destabilization.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.66-122
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• 2019

As the Korean economy grew, employment expanded steadily, with the number of economically active people increasing and the employment-to-population rate also increasing. However, the working age population started to decline in 2017, and the employment of women and young people has been sluggish. The proportion of non-salaried workers in Korea is much higher than in other OECD countries, and is also excessive, considering Korea's income levels. In addition, the proportion of non-regular workers and the proportion of workers employed at small companies are particularly high among salaried workers. In light of these characteristics of Korean employment, the urgent problems facing the employment structure can be summarized by the deepening dual structure of the labor market, the increase in youth unemployment, sluggish female employment figures, and an excessive share of self-employment. Overall, it is seen that labor market duality is the main structural factor of the employment problems in Korea. Therefore, in order to fundamentally address this employment problem, it is necessary to concentrate policy efforts on alleviating labor market duality.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.167-197
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• 1991

This paper is intended as an introductory essay to explain endogenous changes in the scope of firm activities in the competitive structure of a deregulated, multi-product financial industry. Recently, the global financial industry has been experiencing a widespread reshuffling in its activities, reflecting both consolidation and specialization. The spread of the universal banking system, which involves the integration of various kinds of financial activities, has resulted in the so-called financial supermarket. At the same time, the traditional set of banking activities has been unbundled into so-called financial boutiques. A relevant question is where the current reshuffling process of integration and disintegration in financial activities might lead the financial industry. However, presently popular theories of the financial industry are not really appropriate for the analysis of this issue. This paper attempts to integrate the theory of specialization [George J. Stigler, "The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. LIX, No.3, June 1951] and the theory of the multi-product firm [William J. Baumol, John C. Panzar, and Robert D. Willig, Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York, 1982] and to apply the resulting hybrid theory, a theory on the scope of financial activity, to the financial industry. The implications of this theory for the issues raised above are formalized under five hypotheses on the reshuffling of financial activities as listed below: Hypothesis I: The differences in the organization of financial industries among countries are determined by differences in the size of the financial markets, other things being equal. Hypothesis II: A financial firm will separate those financial activities simultaneously having relatively strong economies of scale and relatively weak economies of scope (alternatively, diseconomies of scope) from other activities. Conversely, the firm will integrate those activities simultaneously having relatively weak economies of scale (alternatively, diseconomies of scale) and relatively strong economies of scope with incumbent activities. Hypothesis III: A competitive equilibrium in the deregulated financial industry will consist of both specialized and multi-product financial firms, resulting in a mixed form of specialized and universal banking systems. Hypothesis IV: As world financial markets fully integrate and all countries consequently face this single, common world market, the financial structures of individual countries will become increasingly similar. Hypothesis V: A more universal banking system will dominate the deregulated financial industry in countries with relatively small financial markets, while a more specialized banking system will dominate in countries with relatively large financial markets. However, equilibrium will ultimately be mixed, with specialized and universal banks coexisting, as stated in Hypothesis III. Based on these hypotheses, this paper interprets the historical development of specialized vs. universal banking systems in major industrial countries as a process driven by the evolution of the financial market in each country - i.e. the change in the size of the financial market over time. In addition, this paper anticipates that the final equilibrium of the world financial industry, which is currently under the pressure of financial innovations and deregulation, will be a mixed equilibrium with both specialized boutiques and universal supermarket-type financial firms, instead of an exclusively specialized or universal banking system. Future research should seek continued theoretical elaboration and empirical verification of this paper's hypotheses.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.1-34
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• 2010

We conduct a comprehensive risk analysis of household debt in Korea for the first time using the whole sample credit bureau (CB) data of 2.2 million individual debtors. After analysing debt service capacity profiles of debtor groups classified by the borrower characteristics such as income, age, occupation, credit scoring, and the type of creditor business companies, we investigate the impact of interest rate and income changes on debt service-to-income ratios (DTIs) and default rates of respective debtor groups. Empirical results indicate that debt service burdens are relatively high for low income wage earners, high income self-employed, low income capital and card loan holders, and high income mutual savings loan holders. We also find that debtors from multiple financial companies are particularly weak in their debt service capacity. The scenario analysis indicates that financial companies, with the current level of capital buffers, may be able to absorb negative consequences arising from the increase in DTIs and loan default rates if the interest rate and income changes remain modest. However, the negative consequences may fall disproportionately on non-bank financial companies such as capital, credit card, and mutual savings banks, whose debtors' DTIs are already high. We also find that the refinancing risk of household debt is relatively high in Korea as more than half of household mortgage debts are bullet loans. As the DTIs of mortgage loan holders are already high, under the current DTI regulation, mortgage loans may not be readily refinanced especially when the interest rate rises. Disruptions in mortgage loan refinancing may put downward pressure on housing prices, which may in turn magnify refinancing risk under the current loan-to-value (LTV) regulation. Overall our analysis suggests that, for more effective monitoring of household debt risk, it is necessary to combine existing surveillance schemes based on macro aggregate indicators with more comprehensive and detailed risk analyses based on micro individual data.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.171-216
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• 2010

With the payment and settlement systems becoming more and more complex and interconnected, the issue of their interdependency rises as an important academic issue as well as a policy topic. This study examines causes, forms, and risk management of interdependencies of payment and settlement systems in Korea, and presents their current situation. By way of simulations using BOF-PSS2 developed by the Bank of Finland, we quantify the effects of an operational disruption on the payment and settlement systems so as to figure out the degree of interdependency. As a result, the secondary round effect reaches up to ￦13.6 trillion a day, which amounts to 7.8% of the daily settlement value. Furthermore, if we also consider the amount of direct operational disruption, the volume of operational disruption occupies 22.3% of total value of the daily settlement, evidencing that the interdependencies of the payment and settlement systems in Korea is enormously widespread. The secondary round effects are found to be more severe with security companies rather than with banks, and to be more depended upon when it is perceived rather than it actually happens. In case that we expand the liquidity to include cash holdings and deposits as assets, the secondary round effect dramatically decreases in all types of financial institutions while foreign banks account for more share of all the secondary round effects increases. Based on these results, we suggest various policy tasks and directions to improve the risk management of settlement systems: expansion of off-setting settlements, introduction of a new settlement system for securities transactions, rapid provision of liquidity to financial institutions, more effective monitoring on participant institutions, and intensified information sharing and cooperation among the systems.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.239-262
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• 2006

The paper suggests that there has been a shift in the allocation of bank credit from large firms to small firms before and after the economic crisis. The paper also suggests that the improved lending practices of financial institutions, at least partially, contributed to this shift of corporate loans from large firms to small firms. Comparing the periods before and after the economic crisis also suggests that some important changes occurred to the corporate bond market. The effect of firm size on the corporate bond market differs before and after the economic crisis. Before the crisis, the larger the firms, the more they could borrow in the corporate bond market. However, after the crisis, it is not the case. The following interpretation could be put forward. Before the crisis, investors in the corporate bond market expected that the government would rescue large firms if they face the risk of bankruptcies. However, the collapse of Daewoo Group in 1999 shattered the TBTF (Too Big To Fail) myth of the public. The liquidity crisis of Hyundai Group in 2000-2001 reinforced the disintegration of the TBTF myth.