• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.123-147
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• 1990

This paper examines the changing geography of producer service industries in the 1980s. The foci of this study are to analyze the regional distribution of each producer services, and to reveal the spatial linkage of producer services. Further this paper asserts the potential role of producer services for reducing the potential endogenous development in the periphery. During the 1981-86 period, producer service industries grew more rapidly than other service sectors and manufacturing sector. The main reason of the raid growth of producer services is attributable to an increase in demand for intermediate services from manufacturing firms. In order to compete an increasingly complex business environment, firms have expanded the amount of effort devoted to activities such as planning, coordination and control, and consequently have increased their use of producer services. The most distinctive feature of the location of producer services is spatial concentration into Seoul and surrounding region. Especially the degree of the concentration o business services into the Capital Region has been accelerating during the 1990s. The pattern of employment growth and regional distribution of producer services show a clear core / periphery disparity. Much of the regional inequality in producer services is largely due to variation in demand associated with the pattern of corporation headquarters with the pattern of corporation headquarters and branch plants location with large manufacturing firms. The analysis of spatial division of labor reflects that producer services are related to the location of headquarters in manufacturing industry. Headquarters in manufacturing firms and business service firms tend to cluster each other. Most of the headquarters spatially separated from branch offices are clustered heavily in Seoul. Especially headquarters of business services and insurance services are overwhelmingly concentrated into Seoul. The firms whose headquarters are located in Seoul have a linkage pattern on a nationwide scale. It is viewed have little potential for generating local multiplier effects and regional development. In the light of the result of this study, producer services are not likely to disperse soon to peripheral regions. Consequently the absence of policies directed at enhancing producer sevice in the periphery, concentration tendency would continue to reinforce the core's dominance at the expense of peripheral regions. From a regional perspective, the quality of a region's producer service sector is a key determinant of economic growth, since manu industrial location decisions are influenced by the differential availability of producer services among regions. Poor performance of producer services in peripheral regions seemed to be linked to the region's manufacturing base. Low-wage, standardized branch plants are not likely to induce the growth in knowledge intensive services associated with high-technology corporate headquarters. Producer services may help to create and attract new business including manufacturing firms, and also to enhance the productivity and competitiveness of local firms. Therefore the provision of service producing activities would be lead not only to generate and retain endogenous development but also to attract external firms, especially small and medium sized firms which have a lower propensity of internalized services. Hence, it may be more efficient to create and expanse new locally owned producer services rather than to attract branch plants of mult-locational firms in order to make indigenous economic development.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.751-774
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• 2008

In this paper, we examine the institutional prices differences in the electricity and natural gas industries using unbalanced panel data from 1999 to 2001. The changing market structures following deregulation in both markets allow us to examine the institutional prices differences by ownership type, market structure and merger activities. Estimating the reduced form, after controlling both intrinsic characteristic (marginal costs) and external factors (demand), allows us to identify the extent to which specific factors are correlated with the price. Furthermore it allows us to identify systematic institutional price differences in both electricity and natural gas markets. Our estimation results suggest that the private firms in electricity markets are associated with higher prices than public firms after controlling for demand and cost. We further find that dual-product firms in the natural gas industry and the electricity industry are associated with lower rates than single product firms. These results provide a weak evidence of economies of scope in the dual-product firms. Our results finally suggest that merger activities in natural gas markets are associated with higher rates.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.363-374
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• 2003

There is very high preference for the firms to locate in the Capital region, the City of Seoul and its surrounding areas, which inevitably meets diverse types of regulations to prevent over-concentration in Korea. In order to suggest an urgent need to reform these regulations, the demand for knowledge-based industries is estimated. A legit model is employed to estimate the demand of relocation of the current firms based on a survey conducted in 2001. A logistic curve is used to forecast the demand of new start-ups in Korea. The lands for industrial use only are estimated as many as 2.1 million~3.9 million pyung(1 pyung=3.3$m^2$) in nation-wide. Considering affiliate facilities and infrastructures, 3.1 million~5.9 million of industrial area should be developed in Korea for next five years. Since the rents are very high and the available land is short in the southern parts of Seoul, where most knowledge-based firms locate right now. Many firms have considered relocating on any other places where there exist a plenty of lands available and cheaper rents and cheaper wage rates, but still not far away from Seoul so that they could obtain new advanced information, skilled labors, venture capitals, and high quality of producer services. The Capital region, especially Gyeonggi and Incheon, is the only place to meet those conditions in Korea.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-121
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• 2003

The rapid development and diversification of technology require that firms should adjust and cope with a high degree of uncertainty regarding independent efforts in technology development. An alternative to these strategic responses is the R&D or technological collaborations among firms. There have been many researches on the reasons for and effects of these collaborative relationships; however, research examining the risks involved in the process of collaboration is lacking. The researches into essential prerequisites for successful technological collaborations have remained more or less premature despite of the increasing demand for interfirm R&D collaborations. In other words, the existing literature has mainly focused on the choice of collaborations, but has paid little attention to the processes of collaborations. This study tries to identify and integrate both success and risk factors affecting the decision making of whether collaborations are attempted or not and R&D collaboration processes. Finally, a model of interfirm collaborations is suggested and also practical implications for the firms which consider R&D collaboration with other firms are provided.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.127-148
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• 1990

A Milgrom-Roberts style signalling model of limit pricing is developed to analyze the possibility and the scope of limit pricing in general, noncooperative oligopolies. The model contains multiple incumbent firms facing a potential entrant and assumes an information asymmetry between incombents and the potential entrant about the market demand. There are two periods in the model. In period 1, n incumbent firms simultaneously and noncooperatively choose quantities. At the end of period 1, the potential entrant observes the market price and makes an entry decision. In period 2, depending on the entry decision of the entrant, n' or (n+1) firms choose quantities again before the game terminates. Since the choice of incumbent firms in period 1 depends on their information about demand, the market price in period 1 conveys information about the market demand. Thus, there is a systematic link between the market price and the profitability of entry. Using Bayes-Nash equilibrium as the solution concept, we find that there exist some demand conditions under which incumbent firms will limit price. In symmetric equilibria, incumbent firms each produce an output that is greater than the Cournot output and induce a price that is below the Cournot price. In doing so, each incumbent firm refrains from maximizing short-run profit and supplies a public good that is entry deterrence. The reason that entry is deterred by such a reduced price is that it conveys information about the demand of the industry that is unfavorable to the entrant. This establishes the possibility of limit pricing by noncooperative oligopolists in a setting that is fully rational, and also generalizes the result of Milgrom and Roberts to general oligopolies, confirming Bain's intuition. Limit pricing by incumbents explained above can be interpreted as a form of credible collusion in which each firm voluntarily deviates from myopic optimization in order to deter entry using their superior information. This type of implicit collusion differs from Folk-theorem type collusions in many ways and suggests that a collusion can be a credible one even in finite games as long as there is information asymmetry. Another important result is that as the number of incumbent firms approaches infinity, or as the industry approaches a competitive one, the probability that limit pricing occurs converges to zero and the probability of entry converges to that under complete information. This limit result confirms the intuition that as the number of agents sharing the same private information increases, the value of the private information decreases, and the probability that the information gets revealed increases. This limit result also supports the conventional belief that there is no entry problem in a competitive market. Considering the fact that limit pricing is generally believed to occur at an early stage of an industry and the fact that many industries in Korea are oligopolies in their infant stages, the theoretical results of this paper suggest that we should pay attention to the possibility of implicit collusion by incumbent firms aimed at deterring new entry using superior information. The long-term loss to the Korean economy from limit pricing can be very large if the industry in question is a part of the world market and the domestic potential entrant whose entry is deterred could .have developed into a competitor in the world market. In this case, the long-term loss to the Korean economy should include the lost opportunity in the world market in addition to the domestic long-run welfare loss.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.109-126
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• 1998

We analysed the determinants of part-timer labor demand and supply in Kwangju. The findings of the paper are as follows; First, firms employ part-timer workers in the unskilled or skilled jobs not demanding much training cost. There are two reasons for firms to employ part-time workers: labor cost cut and flexible employment adjustment. Estimated wage differential is 40% not including fringe benefits differential. Second, we find lots of married women to want part-time jobs. The more probably married women choose part-time work, the younger and the less educated they are, and the less kids and the less other income they have.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.269-286
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• 2007

Business Incubators(BI) guide starting-up firms through their growth process and as such constitute a strong instrument to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. This study classified the incubating services into communication, physical facilities, human resources, marketing, financial, legal, technology, and networking services. The research problem was tested with data from 103 BI centers and 561 starting-up firms in BI. The results from the survey are as follows: First, incubating services to important for the BI's performance are networking, communication, human resources, physical facilities, and marketing services. Second, the incubating services to satisfy on the firms in the BI are financial, human resources, marketing, communication, networking, and physical facilities services. Third, there are the differences between BI center and the firms in the BI by each incubating service except communication service. Finally, the results of MSEM(Multi-group Structured Equation Modeling) indicate the communication and networking services are more strongly affected to the performance at the BI centers. Vice versa, the marketing and financial services are more strongly affected to the satisfaction at the firms in the BI centers. Starting-up firms in business incubators showed strong desire to receive better support in such fields as marketing and financial services. BI needs to recognize such demand and provide improved services in such areas. Starting-up firms did not recognize the utility and importance of services in networking with other firms and supporting human resources. BI needs to promote services in such areas. Concerning communication services and physical facility support service, both BI and starting-up firms showed satisfactory levels of services.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.31-57
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• 1991

Korean firms of all sizes, from virtually every industry, have used and are using the term "excessive competition" to describe the state of their industry and to call for government interventions. Moreover, the Korean government has frequently responded to such calls in various ways favorable to the firms, such as controlling entry, curbing capacity investments, or allowing collusion. Despite such interventions' impact on the overall efficiency on the Korean economy as well as on the wealth distribution among diverse groups of economic agents, the term "excessive competition", the basis for the interventions, has so far escaped rigorous scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to clarify the notion of "excessive competition" and "over-investment" which usually accompanies "excessive competition", and to examine the circumstances under which they might occur. We first survey the cases where the terms are most widely used and proceed to examine those cases to determine if competition is indeed excessive, and if so, what causes "excessive competition". Our main concern deals with the case in which the firms must make investment decisions that involve large sunk costs while facing uncertain demand. In order to analyze this case, we developed a two period model of capacity precommitment and the ensuing competition. In the first period, oligopolistic firms make capacity investments that are irreversible. Demand is uncertain in period 1 and only the distribution is known. Thus, firms must make investment decisions under uncertainty. In the second period, demand is realized, and the firms compete with quantity under realized demand and capacity constraints. In the above setting, we find that there is "no over-investment," en ante, and there is "no excessive competition," ex post. As measured by the information available in period 1, expected return from investment of a firm is non-negative, overall industry capacity does not exceed the socially optimal level, and competition in the second period yields an outcome that gives each operating firm a non-negative second period profit. Thus, neither "excessive competition" nor "over-investment" is possible. This result will generally hold true if there is no externality and if the industry is not a natural monopoly. We also extend this result by examining a model in which the government is an active participant in the game with a well defined preference. Analysis of this model shows that over-investment arises if the government cannot credibly precommit itself to non-intervention when ex post idle capacity occurs, due to socio-political reasons. Firms invest in capacities that exceed socially optimal levels in this case because they correctly expect that the government will find it optimal for itself to intervene once over-investment and ensuing financial problems for the firms occur. Such planned over-investment and ensuing government intervention are the generic problems under the current system. These problems are expected to be repeated in many industries in years to come, causing a significant loss of welfare in the long run. As a remedy to this problem, we recommend a non-intervention policy by the government which creates and utilizes uncertainty. Based upon an argument which is essentially the same as that of Kreps and Wilson in the context of a chain-store game, we show that maintaining a consistent non-intervention policy will deter a planned over-investment by firms in the long run. We believe that the results obtained in this paper has a direct bearing on the public policies relating to many industries including the petrochemical industry that is currently in the center of heated debates.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Simulation Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.101-105
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• 2002

In a traditional hierarchical inventory system, direct orders are the only information for inventory management that is exchanged between the firms involved. But due to the rapid development of modern information technology, it becomes possible for the firms to share more information in real time, e.g. demand and inventory status data. And so the term Supply Chain has emerged because it is seen as an important source of competitive advantage. Now it is possible to challenge traditional approaches to inventory management. In the past, one of the de-facto assumptions for inventory management was that the demand pattern follows a specific distribution function. However, it is undesirable to apply this assumption in real situations because the demand information in the supply chain tends to be distorted due to the bullwhip effect in a supply chain. To overcome this weakness, we propose a new solution method using NN (Neural Network). Our method proceeds in three steps. First, we find the patterns of optimal reorder points by analyzing past data. Second. train the NN using these pattern data and finally decide the reorder point. Using simulation experiment, we show that the proposed solution method gives better result than that of traditional research.

• Management Science and Financial Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.125-136
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• 2005

As the importance of time-based competition is increasing, information systems for supporting the immediate decision making is strongly required. Especially high -tech product firms are under extreme pressure of rapid response to the demand side due to relatively short life cycle of the product. Therefore, the objective of our research is proposing a framework of estimating demand curve based on e-auction data, which is extremely easy to access and well reflect the limited demand curve in that channel. Firstly, we identify the advantages of using e-auction data for full demand curve estimation and then verify it using Agent-Eased-Modeling and Tobin's censored regression model.