• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.211-220
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• 2016

In accordance with the environmental changes that surrounds the port, there seems to be a trend of increasing interest in a sustainable development and operation of port. Considering that sustainability assessment utilizing Triple Bottome Line(TBL) has been conducted actively in various fields of research, it is essential to evaluate port sustainability including not only economic aspect but also social as well as environmental ones. In this regard, this study aims to measure the relative importance of port sustainability index using AHP. Moreover, sustainability of Korean four major ports has been tested by adopting the newly developed index in this study. From the results, it can be concluded that in addition to securing high value cargoes, increasing efficiency of port operation and infrastructure together with capital investment are essential. Growth harmonized with surrounding area of port and environment-friendly port operation should not be disregarded.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.9
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• pp.49-59
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• 2022

Based on assessing the impact of factors on the business efficiency of construction enterprises, the research team proposes policy implications to improve the business performance of listed construction enterprises in Vietnam in the coming time. The study used secondary data collected from the audited financial statements of 25 enterprises listed on Vietnam's stock market in the period 2015-2021 to estimate the factors affecting the business performance of construction enterprises. After collecting, the data will be encrypted and checked. The article uses a quantitative research method by using a linear regression model on Eviews 10 to analyze the data and analyze the impact of factors on the business performance of construction enterprises listed on Vietnam's stock market. The research result shows that firm size and growth rate positively affect business performance while capital structure, receivable management, fixed asset investment, and economic growth have a positive impact on the business performance of construction companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market. Based on this result, the paper also makes recommendations to the Vietnamese construction companies to enhance their business performance.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.1189-1194
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• 2009

A gutter-shaped U grating is a facility that is installed at the sides of a road to provide pedestrians with a rainwater-free road. The previous studies on this facility focused mainly on the progress of the efforts that are being made to improve its performance and interception efficiency so as to prevent damages in regional areas due to the heavy rains caused by climate change. The studies on its maintenance, however, are still inadequate. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyze and compare the life cycle costs and performance evaluations of the steel and magic gratings, which are installed in apartments. The results of the study show that the replacement period and rate of gratings differ depending on where they are installed. The initial capital investment cost of a magic grating installed at a road where many vehicles pass is quite high, but in terms of its maintenance and entire-life-cycle costs, its total expenses are lower than those of a steel grating. The results of this study are expected to serve as preliminary data for the selection of an adequate grating that is suitable for particular places in the design phase of construction projects.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.8
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• pp.5-14
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• 2013

Purpose - We live in a world of constant change and competition. Many airports have specific competitiveness goals and strategies for achieving and maintaining them. The global economic recession, financial crises, and rising oil prices have resulted in an increasingly important role for facility investment and renewal and the implementation of appropriate policies in ensuring the competitive advantage for airports. It is thus important to analyze the factors that enhance efficiency and productivity for an airport. This study aims to determine the efficiency levels of 20 major airports in East Asia, Europe, and North America. Further, this study also suggests suitable policies and strategies for their development. Research design, data, and methodology - This paper employs the DEA-CCR, DEA-BCC, and DEA-Malmquist production index analysis models to determine airport efficiency. The study uses data on the efficiency and productivity of the world's leading airports between 2006 and 2010. The input variables include the airport size, the number of runways, the size of passenger terminals, and the size of cargo terminals. The output variables include the annual number of passengers and the annual cargo volume. The study uses basic data from the 2010 World Airport Traffic Report (ACI). The world's top 20 airports (as rated by the ACI report) are investigated. The study uses the expanded DEA Model and the Super Efficiency Model to identify the most effective airports among the top 20. The Malmquist productivity index analysis is used to measure airport effectiveness. Results - This study analyzes longitudinal and cross-sectional data on the world's top 20 airports covering 2006 to 2010. A CCR analysis shows that the most efficient airports in 2010 were Gatwick Airport (LGW), Zurich Airport (ZRH), Vienna Airport (VIE), Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino Airport (FCO), Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Seattle-Tacoma Airport (SEA), San Francisco Airport (SFO), HongKong Airport (HKG), Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK), and Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG). We find that changes in airport productivity are affected more by technical factors than by airport efficiency. Conclusions - Based on the study results, we offer four airport development proposals. First, a benchmark airport needs to be identified. Second, inefficiency must be reduced and high-cost factors need to be managed. Third, airport operations should be enhanced through technical innovation. Finally, scientific demand forecasting and facility preparation must become the focus of attention. This paper has some limitations. Because the Malmquist productivity index is based on the hypothesis of the, the identified production change could be over- or under-estimated. Further, as DEA estimates the relative efficiency. It also cannot generalize to include all airport conditions because the variables are limited. To measure airport productivity more accurately, other input variables and environmental variables such as financial and policy factors should be included.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.164-179
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• 2013

Ulaanbaatar city, the capital of Mongolia and the center of Mongolian economy, increasingly needs to have a long-term urban planning and a system to impose a tax on land effectively as insufficient development of land and the moving of nomad into urban areas increases during its rapid growth. Therefore, Mongolian government has to prepare a land management system which provides the infrastructure to improve work efficiency and service quality by integrating digitalized data about land and main facilities and sharing data between related departments. This research analyzed the environment to operate the existing land management system and working environment and redesigned database. Furthermore, it integrated all the existing systems, configured service network, and made working environment for land registration, land permission, land payment management to be processed online. With this, it provides the foundation to improve quality of people's life through the preparation of long term urban planning, clean tax administration of real estate, and reconsideration of efficiency about urban infrastructure investment.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.179-201
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• 2014

The complementary effect between FDI and its absorptive capacity has drawn more attention than before. This paper intended to explore the relationship between energy intensity and such complementary effect. The absorptive capacity of FDI shows various aspects among which we focus on the human capital, the financial system and the infrastructure in this paper. Using the panel data from 1990 to 2011, the study is processed between the 20 OECD and 20 Non-OECD countries. The empirical results shown that for OECD country, a complementary effect exists between FDI and its absorbability and it has the controlling effect on energy reduction. But the effect is only significant in the human capital and the financial system. The infrastructure variable is less important in OECD country due to their high development level. However, for non-OECD country, the complementary effect between infrastructure and FDI reduces energy consumption significantly, it can get to the point that the process for infrastructure to attract FDI and also benefits from it only blow its way to the Non-OECD, developing countries, without andy special effects for the OECD countries which has already highly build up their infrastructure. Also, the financial system in Non-OECD countries is at the primary stage yet, which is not easy to contribute efficiency. To make a conclusion, the complementary effect between infrastructure and FDI in OECD country and which between finical system and FDI in non-OECD country cannot enhance energy efficiency as expected.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2010

Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2019

Reversible solid oxide fuel cell (ReSOC) system was integrated with waste steam for electrical energy storage in distributed energy storage application. Waste steam was utilized as external heat in SOEC mode for higher hydrogen production efficiency. Three system configurations were analyzed to evaluate techno-economic performance. The first system is a simple configuration to minimize the cost of balance of plant. The second system is the more complicated configuration with heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). The third system is featured with HRSG and fuel recirculation by blower. Lumped models were used for system performance analyses. The ReSOC stack was characterized by applying area specific resistance value at fixed operating pressure and temperature. In economical assessment, the levelized costs of energy storage (LCOS) were calculated for three system configurations based on capital investment. The system lifetime was assumed 20 years with ReSOC stack replaced every 5 years, inflation rate of 2%, and capacity factor of 80%. The results showed that the exergy round-trip efficiency of system 1, 2, 3 were 47.9%, 48.8%, and 52.8% respectively. The high round-trip efficiency of third system compared to others is attributed to the remarkable reduction in steam requirement and hydrogen compression power owning to fuel recirculation. The result from economic calculation showed that the LCOS values of system 1, 2, 3 were 3.46 ¢/kWh, 3.43 ¢/kWh, and 3.14 ¢/kWh, respectively. Even though the systems 2 and 3 have expensive HRSG, they showed higher round-trip efficiencies and significant reduction in boiler and hydrogen compressor cost.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.109-153
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• 1992

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Korea's banking industry and derives various implications on the prospect for the Korean banking structure in the future based on the estimated efficiency indicators for the banking sector. The Korean banking industry is permitted to operate trust business to the full extent and the security business to a limited extent, while it is formally subjected to the strict, specialized banking system. Security underwriting and investment businesses are allowed in a very limited extent only for stocks and bonds of maturity longer than three year and only up to 100 percent of the bank paid-in capital. Until the end of 1991, the ceiling was only up to 25 percent of the total balance of the demand deposits. However, they are prohibited from the security brokerage business. While the in-house integration of security businesses with the traditional business of deposit and commercial lending is restrictively regulated as such, Korean banks can enter the security business by establishing subsidiaries in the industry. This paper, therefore, estimates the efficiency indicators as well as the cost functions, identifying the in-house integrated trust business and security investment business as important banking activities, for various cases where both the production and the intermediation function approaches in modelling the financial intermediaries are separately applied, and the banking businesses of deposit, lending and security investment as one group and the trust businesses as another group are separately and integrally analyzed. The estimation results of the efficiency indicators for various cases are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2. First, security businesses exhibit economies of scale but also economies of scope with traditional banking activities, which implies that in-house integration of the banking and security businesses may not be a nonoptimal banking structure. Therefore, this result further implies that the transformation of Korea's banking system from the current, specialized system to the universal banking system will not impede the improvement of the banking industry's efficiency. Second, the lending businesses turn out to be subjected to diseconomies of scale, while exhibiting unclear evidence for economies of scope. In sum, it implies potential efficiency gain of the continued in-house integration of the lending activity. Third, the continued integration of the trust businesses seems to contribute to improving the efficiency of the banking businesses, since the trust businesses exhibit economies of scope. Fourth, deposit services and fee-based activities, such as foreign exchange and credit card businesses, exhibit economies of scale but constant returns to scope, which implies, the possibility of separating those businesses from other banking and trust activities. The recent trend of the credit card business being operated separately from other banking activities by an independent identity in Korea as well as in the global banking market seems to be consistent with this finding. Then, how can the possibility of separating deposit services from the remaining activities be interpreted? If one insists a strict definition of commercial banking that is confined to deposit and commercial lending activities, separating the deposit service will suggest a resolution or a disappearance of banking, itself. Recently, however, there has been a suggestion that separating banks' deposit and lending activities by allowing a depository institution which specialize in deposit taking and investing deposit fund only in the safest securities such as government securities to administer the deposit activity will alleviate the risk of a bank run. This method, in turn, will help improve the safety of the payment system (Robert E. Litan, What should Banks Do? Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1987). In this context, the possibility of separating the deposit activity will imply that a new type of depository institution will arise naturally without contradicting the efficiency of the banking businesses, as the size of the banking market grows in the future. Moreover, it is also interesting to see additional evidences confirming this statement that deposit taking and security business are cost complementarity but deposit taking and lending businesses are cost substitute (see Table 2 for cost complementarity relationship in Korea's banking industry). Finally, it has been observed that the Korea's banking industry is lacking in the characteristics of natural monopoly. Therefore, it may not be optimal to encourage the merger and acquisition in the banking industry only for the purpose of improving the efficiency.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.22
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• pp.137-165
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• 2007

It seems high time to increase productivity by adopting e-business to overcome challenges posed by both external factors including the appreciation of Korean won, oil hikes and fierce global competition and domestic issues represented by disparities between large corporations and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Seoul metropolitan and local cities, and export and domestic demand all of which weaken future growth engines in the Korean economy. The demands of the globalization era are for innovative changes in businessprocess and industrial structure aiming for creating new values. To this end, e-business is expected to play a core role in the sophistication of the Korean economy through new values and innovation. In order to examine business performance in e-business-adopting industries, this study analyzed the home shopping industry by closely looking into the financial ratios including the ratio of net profit to sales, the ratio of operation income to sales, the ratio of gross cost to sales cost, the ratio of gross cost to selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense, and return of investment (ROI). This study, for best outcome, referred to corporate financial statements as a main resource to calculate financial ratios by utilizing Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System (DART) of the Financial Supervisory Service, one of the Korea's financial supervisory authorities. First of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of net profit to sales is as following. CJ Home Shopping has registered a remarkable increase in its ratio of net profit rate to sales since 2002 while its competitors find it hard to catch up with CJ's stunning performances. This is partly due to the efficient management compared to CJ's value of capital. Such significance, if the current trend continues, will make the front-runner assume the largest market share. On the other hand, GS Home Shopping, despite its best organized system and largest value of capital among others, lacks efficiency in management. Second of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of operation income to sales is as following. Both CJ Home Shopping and GS Home Shopping have, until 2004, recorded similar growth trend. However, while CJ Home Shopping's operating income continued to increase in 2005, GS Home Shopping observed its operating income declining which resulted in the increasing income gap with CJ Home Shopping. While CJ Home Shopping with the largest market share in home shopping industryis engaged in aggressive marketing, GS Home Shopping due to its stability-driven management strategies falls behind CJ again in the ratio of operation income to sales in spite of its favorable management environment including its large capital. Companies in the Group B were established in the same year of 2001. NS Home Shopping was the first in the Group B to shift its loss to profit. Woori Home Shopping has continued to post operating loss for three consecutive years and finally was sold to Lotte Group in 2007, but since then, has registered a continuing increase in net income on sales. Third of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of gross cost to sales cost is as following. Since home shopping falls into sales business, its cost of sales is much lower than that of other types of business such as manufacturing industry. Since 2002 in gross costs including cost of sales, SG&A expense, and non-operating expense, cost of sales turned out to have remarkably decreased. Group B has also posted a notable decline in the same sector since 2002. Fourth of all, the result of the trend analysis on the ratio of gross cost to SG&A expense is as following. Due to its unique characteristics, the home shopping industry usually posts ahigh ratio of SG&A expense. However, more than 80% of SG&A expense means the result of lax management and at the same time, a sharp lower net income on sales than other industries. Last but not least, the result of the trend analysis on ROI is as following. As for CJ Home Shopping, the curve of ROI looks similar to that of its investment on fixed assets. As it turned out, the company's ratio of fixed assets to operating income skyrocketed in 2004 and 2005. As far as GS Home Shopping is concerned, its fixed assets are not as much as that of CJ Home Shopping. Consequently, competition in the home shopping industry, at the moment, is among CJ, GS, Hyundai, NS and Woori Home Shoppings, and all of them need to more thoroughly manage their costs. In order for the late-comers of Group B and other home shopping companies to advance further, the current lax management should be reformed particularly on their SG&A expense sector. Provided that the total sales volume in the Internet shopping sector is projected to grow over 20 trillion won by the year 2010, it is concluded that all the participants in the home shopping industry should put strategies on efficient management on costs and expenses as their top priority rather than increase revenues, if they hope to grow even further after 2007.