• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.15 no.2 s.46
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• pp.83-95
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• 2006

This study is to establish a national vision of the hydrogen economy and design a roadmap to materialize it. A goal is set to supply 15% of final energy consumption with hydrogen energy in Korea by 2040. Selecting the transportation sorter as the main target, more than 50% of vehicles on the road will be replaced with fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) while $20{\sim}30%$ of electricity demand in the residential and commercial sectors might be replaced with power generation by fuel cells. If this goals were attained as planned, primary energy demand would be reduced by 9%, resulting in improved energy mix in which fossil fuel consumption is greatly reduced whereas renewable energy increases by 47%. Furthermore, GHG emissions will be reduced by 20% and self-sufficiency in energy is enhanced up to 23%. If the hydrogen economy is to materialize, the government needs to implement institutional arrangements such as new legislations, organizations, and fiscal measures to facilitate the process. In addition, the private sector's participation is highly recommended to mobilize fund needed for the huge investment to build an infrastructure in preparation for the hydrogen economy. Arrangements for codes and standards are also required to promote industrialization of fuel cells and hydrogen production and consumption.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.83-98
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• 2020

This study analyzes how investors' irrational behavior (or pessimistic sentiment) affects stock market returns and investors' market activity using mass media that delivered public information from January 1998 to December 2012 as a sample. According to pessimistic investor theory, investor pessimism leads to downward pressure on the price of equity capital, thereby making market sentiment pessimistic and lowering market yields. It also shows that investor pessimism increases transaction costs in the market, which in turn dampens investors' trading activities. In other words, pessimistic reporting on public information disseminated by mass media induces investors to act irrationally, eventually having a direct impact on the stock market. This study conducted an empirical analysis of the existing theoretical and empirical studies using domestic mass media as a sample. First, the study revealed a negative correlation between pessimistic reporting and returns as well as excess returns, while it did not show statistically significant results. Second, evidence has been suggested that pessimistic sentiment in the stock market has a negative impact on future pessimistic reporting by mass media. Third, the analysis of the impact of pessimistic reporting on investors' market activity using proxy variables for various market activities found that pessimism dampens market activity, while it did not show statistically significant results. It is assumed that low statistical significance is due to the fact that sample collection was carried out on a monthly basis. While the results of the study have low statistical significance, statistical signs support predictions of the theory.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.139-169
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• 2023

This study analyzes the effects of firms' technology innovation(patent applications) on employment(number of workers and proportion of high-skilled workers) and corporate performance(sales per worker), while considering the two-way causal relationships between these variables. We used the three-stage least squares(3SLS) estimation to examine system of equations in which the dependent variables affect each other with a two-year lag wherever relevant, and applied it to firm-level panel data of Korean manufacturers with 100 or more workers. Our data covered the period of 2005-2017. Exogenous variables, such as firms' managerial and other characteristics, were controlled as explanatory variables. The identification variables for each equation included firms' R&D intensity, labor cost per worker(or operation of firms' own R&D center), and investment on worker training. We find that firms' patent applications increased number of workers, proportion of high-skilled workers, and sales per worker; the causal relationships in the opposite direction were also significant. Evidently, firms' technology innovation is critical to the growth and quality improvement of employment as well as sustainable corporate growth.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.329-352
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• 2017

Since the late 2000s Korean foreign direct investors in North Korea and China border regions have gone through the closure of outward processing trade(OPT) networks and changes in their location due to UN security council resolution and Korean independent sanctions against North Korea's nuclear and missile tests. However, the introduction of new Chinese OPT policy has led to the invigoration of domestic market-based OPT networks towards North Korea. The main aim of this paper is to identify the exceptional characteristics of Dandong in Liaoning province, a North Korea and China border region by analyzing OPT networks towards North Korea. Fundamentally the establishment of OPT networks towards North Korea is likely to be based on the utilization of a plenty of low wages in North Korea. The main reasons for this are fallen into two perspectives: geo-economics and geo-politics. The first perspective is geo-economics centering on the consolidation of economic exchange between North Korea and China, and North Korean economic development. For example, the introduction of Chinese OPT in border region has enabled Chinese local firms based on domestic market to access a plenty of low wage in North Korea in formal and institutional contexts. The second is geo-politics for the stability of North Korean regime based on the means of geo-economics. As the invigoration of domestic market-based OPT networks might make North Korea possible promoting foreign money earning, it enable North Korea to be sustainable as a buffering region between capitalist and socialist regime for China. It shows Chinese geo-strategic attempts to deal with the economic and regime stability of North Korean as a buffering state. In other words, OPT networks in North Korea should be concerned with the discourse practice of geo-economics and geo-politics which might lead to various and contingent spatial economies in border region. As a consequence, North Korea and China border regions could defined as a space in which is applicable to exceptional institutions and policies, and an exploitative space in which create surplus and rents by utilizing a plenty of low wages in North Korea through OPT networks.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.67-93
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative small and medium sized enterprises(SMEs) listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange. The innovative SMEs is defined as the firms with high level of R&D intensity which is measured by (R&D investment/total sales) ratio, according to Chauvin and Hirschey (1993). The R&D investment plays an important role as the innovative driver that can increase the future growth opportunity and profitability of the firms. Therefore, the R&D investment have large, positive, and consistent influences on the market value of the firm. In this point of view, we expect that the innovative SMEs can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. And also, we expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Aivazian et al.(2006) exert that the financial unconstrained firms with the high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms. We collect the sample firms among the total SMEs listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market of Korea Exchange during the periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. The total number of firm-year observations of the total sample firms throughout the entire period is 5,544, the number of firm-year observations of the dividend firms is 2,919, and the number of firm-year observations of the non-dividend firms is 2,625. About 53%(or 2,919) of these total 5,544 observations involve firms that make a dividend payment. The dividend firms are divided into two groups according to the R&D intensity, such as the innovative SMEs with larger than median of R&D intensity and the noninnovative SMEs with smaller than median of R&D intensity. The number of firm-year observations of the innovative SMEs is 1,506, and the number of firm-year observations of the noninnovative SMEs is 1,413. Furthermore, the innovative SMEs are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints, such as the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms. The number of firm-year observations of the former is 894, and the number of firm-year observations of the latter is 612. Although all available firm-year observations of the dividend firms are collected, deletions are made in the case of financial industries such as banks, securities company, insurance company, and other financial services company, because their capital structure and business style are widely different from the general manufacturing firms. The stock repurchase was involved in dividend payment because Grullon and Michaely (2002) examined the substitution hypothesis between dividends and stock repurchases. However, our data structure is an unbalanced panel data since there is no requirement that the firm-year observations data are all available for each firms during the entire periods from January 1999 to December 2007 from the KIS Value Library database. We firstly estimate the classic Lintner(1956) dividend adjustment model, where the decision to smooth dividend or to adopt a residual dividend policy depends on financial constraints measured by market accessibility. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between current payout rato and target payout ratio each year. In the Lintner model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), and independent variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t). We hypothesized that firms adjust partially the gap between the current dividend per share(DPS_t) and the target payout ratio(Ω) each year, when the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) deviate from the target payout ratio(Ω). We secondly estimate the expansion model that extend the Lintner model by including the determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory. In the expansion model, dependent variable is the current dividend per share(DPS_t), explanatory variables are the past dividend per share(DPS_t-1) and the current earnings per share(EPS_t), and control variables are the current capital expenditure ratio(CEA_t), the current leverage ratio(LEV_t), the current operating return on assets(ROA_t), the current business risk(RISK_t), the current trading volume turnover ratio(TURN_t), and the current dividend premium(DPREM_t). In these control variables, CEA_t, LEV_t, and ROA_t are the determinants suggested by the residual dividend theory and the agency theory, ROA_t and RISK_t are the determinants suggested by the dividend signaling theory, TURN_t is the determinant suggested by the transactions cost theory, and DPREM_t is the determinant suggested by the catering theory. Furthermore, we thirdly estimate the Lintner model and the expansion model by using the panel data of the financial unconstrained firms and the financial constrained firms, that are divided into two groups according to level of financial constraints. We expect that the financial unconstrained firms can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, because the former can finance more easily the investment funds through the market accessibility than the latter. We analyzed descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and median to delete the outliers from the panel data, conducted one way analysis of variance to check up the industry-specfic effects, and conducted difference test of firms characteristic variables between innovative SMEs and noninnovative SMEs as well as difference test of firms characteristic variables between financial unconstrained firms and financial constrained firms. We also conducted the correlation analysis and the variance inflation factors analysis to detect any multicollinearity among the independent variables. Both of the correlation coefficients and the variance inflation factors are roughly low to the extent that may be ignored the multicollinearity among the independent variables. Furthermore, we estimate both of the Lintner model and the expansion model using the panel regression analysis. We firstly test the time-specific effects and the firm-specific effects may be involved in our panel data through the Lagrange multiplier test that was proposed by Breusch and Pagan(1980), and secondly conduct Hausman test to prove that fixed effect model is fitter with our panel data than the random effect model. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows. The determinants suggested by the major theories of dividend, namely, residual dividend theory, dividend signaling theory, agency theory, catering theory, and transactions cost theory explain significantly the dividend policy of the innovative SMEs. Lintner model indicates that firms maintain stable and long run target payout ratio, and that firms adjust partially the gap between the current payout ratio and the target payout ratio each year. In the core variables of Lintner model, the past dividend per share has more effects to dividend smoothing than the current earnings per share. These results suggest that the innovative SMEs maintain stable and long run dividend policy which sustains the past dividend per share level without corporate special reasons. The main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs is faster than that of the noninnovative SMEs. This means that the innovative SMEs with high level of R&D intensity can adjust dividend payment faster than the noninnovative SMEs, on the ground of their future growth opportunity and profitability. The other main results show that dividend adjustment speed of the financial unconstrained SMEs is faster than that of the financial constrained SMEs. This means that the financial unconstrained firms with high accessibility to capital market can adjust dividend payment faster than the financial constrained firms, on the ground of their financing ability of investment funds through the market accessibility. Futhermore, the other additional results show that dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs classified by the Small and Medium Business Administration is faster than that of the unclassified SMEs. They are linked with various financial policies and services such as credit guaranteed service, policy fund for SMEs, venture investment fund, insurance program, and so on. In conclusion, the past dividend per share and the current earnings per share suggested by the Lintner model explain mainly dividend adjustment speed of the innovative SMEs, and also the financial constraints explain partially. Therefore, if managers can properly understand of the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of innovative SMEs, they can maintain stable and long run dividend policy of the innovative SMEs through dividend smoothing. These are encouraging results for Korea government, that is, the Small and Medium Business Administration as it has implemented many policies to commit to the innovative SMEs. This paper may have a few limitations because it may be only early study about the relations between financial constraints and dividend smoothing of the innovative SMEs. Specifically, this paper may not adequately capture all of the subtle features of the innovative SMEs and the financial unconstrained SMEs. Therefore, we think that it is necessary to expand sample firms and control variables, and use more elaborate analysis methods in the future studies.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.169-201
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• 2011

There was a new wave in grocery business with development of information and technology, thus a movement from traditional stores to online stores, In order to expand the scale of traditional supermarket and to satisfy the customers' needs, they provide offline and online services simultaneously. This paper is based on the previous studies which had been researched in developed countries from late 1990s to early 2000s and the purpose of this study is to introduce the idea and operation system of e-Grocery business. Moreover, we suggest the alternatives on delivery service methods in order to satisfy the customers' needs through analyzing the current condition of e-Grocers in Korea. According to the result of this study, Korean e-Grocers offer only attended home delivery services. In our opinion, Korean supermarkets have to take hybrid model which Tesco.com is using. There are some alternatives to increase the profits of Korean e-Grocers and to provide better services to their customers as follows: As an alternatives for delivery services, picking service is the easiest and cheapest way to apply for supermarkets. This is very useful for working women and also it is possible to order by smartphone recently. They can order the goods to the closest local supermarkets from working place, and then they pick them up on the way home from working off. In order to improve the quality of delivery services, to use the reception box will be the way to provide better services to the customers. The reception box is a way to protect the quality of goods such as fresh-cut product, which require the freshness through the temperature adjustment, and also to keep the safety of ordered goods through locking system Through this system, supermarkets are able to use attended or unattended services under the customers' satisfaction. However, using the reception box is expensive, so shared reception box will be an alternative. As an alternative for development of e-Grocery business, the advertisement for e-Grocery business has to be supported in order to attract potential customers in e-Grocery business. Furthermore, the main concerns of e-Grocery business such as the sanitation and safety of goods, and convenience must be guaranteed in order to keep the loyal customers and to attract new customers.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.53-75
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• 2004

This study is aimed at identifying the national economic value of the irrigation facilities by reviewing the existing papers on economic values of the irrigation facilities and presenting current status of dual O & M problems of the irrigation facilities. This study suggested the unified O & M system rather than continuing the existing dual O & M system of irrigation facilities based on the surveyed results of the activities of irrigation fraternities in Chungnam Province. The findings and proposals for the successful unified and mono O & M system of the irrigation facilities are as follows: (1) Total number of irrigation facilities in the nation accounts for 67,582, while the total length of irrigation and drainage canals amounted to about 174,259km. On account of the total length of structural canals was estimated at 31%, much losses of water and much O & M costs have been inevitable for the full irrigation rice culture. In spite of the past heavy investment for irrigation facilities, the ratio of rain-fed and partially irrigated paddy fields accounts for 23% in 2003. Both Korea Agricultural and Rural Infrastructure Corporation (KARICO) and the city and Gun Governments have managed the irrigation facilities separately by irrigation fraternities. The KARICO have commanded 59% of irrigation paddy area with 18% of the total irrigation facilities, while the city and Gun governments covered 41% of irrigation paddy area with 82% of the existing number of irrigation facilities representing small and medium scale. (2) The 1999 demand prices of irrigation water per ton expressed in 2000 constant market price was estimated at 388 won, the supply price was amounted to 184 won per ton. Considering the supply and demand curve of the irrigation water, the existing irrigation facilities could not satisfy the demand of irrigation water. (3) In 1999, total present added value of the irrigation facilities during the economic life accounted for 48 trillion won, while total supply cost was 44.7 trillion won. The marginal benefit and cost ratio of irrigation water was 1.08. (4) The total O & M cost per year amounting to 681.1 billion won have been required to maintain and repair the existing irrigation facilities in Korea. For the successful unified O & M of irrigation facilities covering whole irrigated paddy field in Korea, 950 billion won of O & M costs are required to keep up the marginal benefit of irrigation water as 2,800 billion won per year. The total O & M cost as 950 billion won should be allocated 40%, 380 billion won for O & M costs of irrigation facilities and 60%, 570 billion won for improvement of irrigation facilities. (5) The study investigated and reviewed the present O & M status of the irrigation facilities by small and medium irrigation fraternities. Most of the farmers belong to the irrigation fraternities preferred not only unified O & M but also KARICO take-over of the whole O & M activities of the irrigation facilities. The prevailing O & M cost per 10a expended by the Corporation was amounted to 104,890 won, while that of city and Gun governments was only amounted to 4,600 won per 10a. regarding the small amount of O & M cost expended by city and Gun governments, it is evident that the existing irrigation system have been managed ineffectively and deteriorated the facilities comparing that of KARICO. In conclusion, the Government could not satisfied the demand of irrigation water by suppling water with existing irrigation facilities. Therefore new additional investment and financial support for irrigation water development should be made to convert rain-fed and partially irrigated paddy fields into fully irrigated ones. The operation and maintenance cost should be supported to keep the marginal values of rice production of existing irrigation facilities in the national economy and to modernize the obsolete irrigation facilities. By unifying the existing dual O & M systems, all the farmers belong to the irrigated paddy fields have to be equally benefited and could be increased their farm income and be stabilized their rural lives.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.15-22
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• 2002

Transportation project appraisal should be precise in order to increase the social welfare and efficiency, and it has been evaluated by only a single criterion analysis such as benefit/cost analysis. However, this method cannot assess some qualitative items, and cannot get a proper solution for the clash of interests among various groups. Therefore, the multi-criteria analysis, which can control these problems, is needed, and then Saaty has developed one of these methods, AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. In AHP, the project is evaluated through weighted score of the criteria and the alternatives, which is surveyed by a questionnaire of specialists. It is based on some strict suppositions such as reciprocal comparison, homogeneity, expectation, independence relationship between multi-criteria, but supposing that each criterion has independence relation with others is too difficult in two reasons. First, in real situation, there cannot be perfect independence relationship between standards. Second, individuals, even though they are specialists of that area, do not feel the degree of independence relation as same as others. This paper develops a modified AHP method for solving this dependence relationship between multi-criteria. First of all. in this method, the degree of dependence relationship between multi-criteria that the specialist feels is surveyed and included to the weighted score of multi-criteria This study supposes three methods to implement this idea. The first model products the degree of dependence relationship in the first step for calculating the weighted score, and the others adjust the result of weighted score from the basic AHP method to the dependence relationship. One of the second methods distributes the cross weighted score to each standard by constant ratio, and the other splits them using Fuzzy measure such as Bel and Pl. Finally, in order to validate these methods, this paper applies them to evaluate the alternatives which can control public resentments against Korean rail path in a city area.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.23-46
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• 2017

Although there have been cases of evaluating the value of specific companies or projects which have centralized on developed countries in North America and Europe from the early 2000s, the system and methodology for estimating the economic value of individual technologies or patents has been activated on and on. Of course, there exist several online systems that qualitatively evaluate the technology's grade or the patent rating of the technology to be evaluated, as in 'KTRS' of the KIBO and 'SMART 3.1' of the Korea Invention Promotion Association. However, a web-based technology valuation system, referred to as 'STAR-Value system' that calculates the quantitative values of the subject technology for various purposes such as business feasibility analysis, investment attraction, tax/litigation, etc., has been officially opened and recently spreading. In this study, we introduce the type of methodology and evaluation model, reference information supporting these theories, and how database associated are utilized, focusing various modules and frameworks embedded in STAR-Value system. In particular, there are six valuation methods, including the discounted cash flow method (DCF), which is a representative one based on the income approach that anticipates future economic income to be valued at present, and the relief-from-royalty method, which calculates the present value of royalties' where we consider the contribution of the subject technology towards the business value created as the royalty rate. We look at how models and related support information (technology life, corporate (business) financial information, discount rate, industrial technology factors, etc.) can be used and linked in a intelligent manner. Based on the classification of information such as International Patent Classification (IPC) or Korea Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) for technology to be evaluated, the STAR-Value system automatically returns meta data such as technology cycle time (TCT), sales growth rate and profitability data of similar company or industry sector, weighted average cost of capital (WACC), indices of industrial technology factors, etc., and apply adjustment factors to them, so that the result of technology value calculation has high reliability and objectivity. Furthermore, if the information on the potential market size of the target technology and the market share of the commercialization subject refers to data-driven information, or if the estimated value range of similar technologies by industry sector is provided from the evaluation cases which are already completed and accumulated in database, the STAR-Value is anticipated that it will enable to present highly accurate value range in real time by intelligently linking various support modules. Including the explanation of the various valuation models and relevant primary variables as presented in this paper, the STAR-Value system intends to utilize more systematically and in a data-driven way by supporting the optimal model selection guideline module, intelligent technology value range reasoning module, and similar company selection based market share prediction module, etc. In addition, the research on the development and intelligence of the web-based STAR-Value system is significant in that it widely spread the web-based system that can be used in the validation and application to practices of the theoretical feasibility of the technology valuation field, and it is expected that it could be utilized in various fields of technology commercialization.