• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.1-20
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• 2021

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the welfare effects of standards harmonization between technologically asymmetric countries, and to determine optimal harmonization strategies for a country with mid-level technological advancement. Design/methodology - Following Salop's circular city model (Salop, 1979), this study constructs a simple, horizontally-differentiated oligopoly model in which three firms and three countries exist. Each country adopts different compatibility standards and each firm incurs conversion costs for foreign market access due to differences in standards. The conversion costs are related to technology; standards harmonization removes these costs between participating countries. The paper considers three cases: i) no harmonization; ii) harmonization with the more technologically-advanced country and iii) harmonization with the less technologically-advanced country. Findings - The paper first considers a scenario in which all three firms occupy some share of the market in each country. It shows that standards harmonization with both the technologically moreor less-advanced country always increases consumer surplus and social welfare. In addition, the producer surplus will increase if the harmonization partner has a higher technology level, whereas it may decrease if the partner has a lower technology level. It also shows that if most domestic export goods are in sectors with conversion costs above a certain level, harmonizing standards with a technologically more-advanced country should be prioritized. Such strategies, moreover, should be emphasized when there exists a large technology gap among countries. Lastly, the paper considers another scenario, in which harmonization leads to the foreclosure of the non-member firm from the member countries' markets. It shows that harmonization improves the social welfare of a mid-level technology country regardless of its partner's technology. It also shows that the country should prioritize harmonization with the technologically less-advanced country. Originality/value - Though some of the existing studies consider the welfare effects of harmonization, their main assumption is that firms have the same conversion technology. Since complying with standards often requires substantial technological advancement and technical expertise, harmonization of compatibility standards between countries with gaps in technological ability carries different implications. This paper investigates the welfare effects of this harmonization and determines an optimal harmonization strategy while considering technological asymmetry among countries in standards compliance.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.396-416
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• 2019

The key conditions for the promotion of innovative technology-based start-ups are expanding the market for innovative technology products and services, increasing equity-based funding opportunities, promoting the commercialization of technological innovation, and establishing a fair-trade system for start-ups to compete fairly in the market. Besides, there is a need for a support system that minimizes the cost of failure in case of business failure to facilitate re-challenge and provides education and training opportunities to enhance entrepreneurial capabilities. To activate technology-based start-ups, the Korean government introduced the TIPS policy in 2013. It is a program that creates technology start-up with private investment led by successful venture entrepreneurs, which has shown remarkable achievement and is regarded as the most successful policy in this field up to now. The most critical factor contributed to the success of this program is to invite private investors to select a technology entrepreneurship team and provide mentoring with the investment. The government provides R&D funding with matching investment, commercialization and marketing support to ensure that technology start-ups survive crossing the death-valley. Subsequent investments from domestic and abroad investors are actively made and it is becoming a representative technology-based start-up program in Korea.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.113-120
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• 2003

The purpose of this thesis is to provide an appropriate trade-off information for the conflicting interests caused by the various factors between building owner and contractor during selecting the contractor and performing the construction work, in which the construction was contracted by open bidding from the government or private organizations. In order to propose the legitimate evidence, the differences between the domestic contract sheet of drawing change and the process of drawing change and those of the foreign countries were compared and analysed. The number of construction ordered in Youngdong area in 2001 whose construction expenses are more than 100,000,000 won is 218 items and 147,005,000,000 won in total cost. Among them, the number of 218 items whose total cost amounts to 16,705,000,000 (11.36%) is in case of increase of construction expenses due to the drawing changes, and the number of 48 items whose total cost amounts to 2,009,000,000 won (1.37%) is the case of decrease. In conclusions, the contractor could have more benefits than the building owner in case they submit the detailed estimate sheet without eliminating the increasing expenses of construction. It is shown that the building owner's loss is increasing whenever the labor cost is higher than material cost. Therefore, this thesis proposes a proper standards for the harmonious compromise between the contractor and the building owner for the problems caused by the drawing changes when the contract agreement is occurred.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.424-432
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• 2008

This paper presents theoretical explanations about the spill-over effects of domestic production of light rail transit and empirically investigates its effects on output, value-added and employment in the Korean economy. We distinguish net gains of domestic production from gross effects that bring about whether localized or imported cars are used. The input-output analysis is employed to fully capture the interaction among various industries involved. The empirical results reveal that net gains of domestic production such as import substitution, improvement of trade balances, and increase in output, value-added and employment are enormous. The cost reduction in construction, E&M systems, cars, management, and tariff and transportation is also significant.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.165-176
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• 2011

In this paper, we develop the cost minimization model to select two incentives and total order quantity with consideration of remanufacture company's return incentive. Return rate is sensitive to the incentive that the manufacture company offers. Using a EOQ(Economic Order Quantity) model of a cost minimization, we show concavities of the model about two incentives and total order quantity respectively. According to the proposed algorithm using the concavities, we find out the optimized incentive prices and total order quantity. Through numerical study, we examine sensitive analysis of the incentive price and order quantity for each parameter when the return rate is sensitive to incentive. Company lessens incentive to reduce total price. However, this makes the total price increase due to a diminution of return quantity. We expect that domestic or overseas remanufacture businesses are able to decide optimal incentive and total order quantity by this research.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.89-111
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• 2016

The Mega-FTA is intended for emerging economies, including developed economies, to expand economies of scale in a single market. The Bilateral FTA shall take into account the relevant industries and the inter-country related industries to adjust the origin standard and preferential tariff rates. Therefore, certain competitive industries can expect foreign investment and re-investment in the domestic market as well as expansion of the market in the region. However, the mega-FTA should expand the size of the economy under the same preferential tax rates for many Partner countries. The Mega-FTA can maximize the effectiveness of the agreement by making use of the competitive advantages of the participating countries. In the mega-FTA, Cumulative Criteria should be appropriately used as a supplemental standard of origin. The Cumulative Criteria is an important FTA utilization factor that determines the success of the mega-FTA. Using FTA, Korea should export locally produced materials using cheaper labor force in FTA partner country. In addition, in order to prepare the Mega-FTA, which allows full cumulation, it is necessary to encourage the overseas transfer of low-cost structure materials processing industry so that the material suppliers can be transferred to the area where production cost is lower and raw material supply is easier.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.61-70
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• 2018

Purpose - These days, an individual user, private entity, hears everyday news of hacking and personal information leakage in the era of a most-connected society. This study investigates cyber attack, cyber insurance and distribution channels for insurance goods in South Korea by analyzing various cases of cyber attacks in domestic and overseas case. Research design, data and methodology - This study adopted various study cases instead of the one large case for deep quality analysis, and focused on various cases of domestic and overseas cyber attacks with insurance. Result - As a result of analyzing the cases that were hacked, types of massive losses and damages arising out of internet blackout due to cyber risks are paralyzation of public and private website and portal, electronic administrative system, public infrastructure, and consequently a normal operation of nation is impossible. These losses and damages however can be coverable under cyber insurance. Conclusions - This paper suggests insurance carriers, as suppliers, should provide multiple channels to sell to the customer and should expand the strategy of advertisement and promotion in order for them to change their mind and compare the price and value of the information of individual users and private entity in view of cost savings.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2002

In recent years, domestic market environment of rice production is confronted with the problems of excessive production and decrease in per capita consumption, resulting in steady decline of domestic rice price. Moreover, as new trade negotiations of WTO or FTA are being forwarded, cheap price of imported rice will also make the rice production environment being worse off. One of the possible production strategies to relieve this situation could be expanding farm size, which increases market competitiveness in terms of cost-saving. Since 1990's, one of the main agricultural policies for rice production in Korea has been expanding farm size. This study aims at 1)exploring brief history of Korean government's agricultural policy for expanding farm size, 2)examining economic effect of farming size expansion, and 3)discussing major role of government to promote appropriate programs for rice-farming and producers. Main conclusion suggests that appropriate farming size should be expanded upto at least five hectares per farm, with producers' effort to reduce farming costs and continuous investments on agricultural infrastructures including irrigation systems, etc. Continuous government's investment on operation and maintenance on water facility is also one of the important factors in expanding farm size.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.203-210
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• 2011

Incheon Port has been served as not only the center of the Yellow Sea and port for trade with China but also domestic gateway port for the metropolitan area, playing a professional role as the greatest domestic Port which processes a variety of items such as imported raw materials, bulk cargo, oil and gas and so on. This study was conducted based on step by step business process between port entry and departure of ship, and incurred cost according to port industry classification and performance on the port facility. Bulk cargo and general cargo such as grain, food, steel, scrap metal, wood, coal, LNG, LPG and oil etc., which have a vast majority of import goods, have been treated by 57,062 thousand tons and 7,409 thousand tons of container cargo were processed at Incheon Port in 2009. Bulk vessels and carriers moving items such as LPG, LNG and oil recorded 38,836 thousand won and full-container vessels recorded 11,001 thousand won as the amount of notified port facility usage fees in 2008.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.905-916
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analyze factors affecting US beef consumption intention in the future, to identify the causes of US beef import growth and to derive implications and strategies for domestic beef producers. Since the KORUS FTA was signed in 2012, US beef imports in 2017 totaled 379,064 tons, an annual increase of 3.5 percent. US beef imports have been steadily increasing due to cuts in FTA tariffs and changes in consumer preferences. The data used in this study utilized a sample of 3,290 grocery purchasers from the Korea Rural Economic Institute's 2016 Food Consumption Behavior Survey. The analytical method used the Ordered Logit Model to analyze what factors influence a consumer's subjective evaluation. As a result, the major factors affecting US beef consumption intention in the future are price, taste and safety. In particular, it has to do with the recent surge in U.S. imports of good-tasting chilled meat. Because chilled meat does not differentiate the market from Hanwoo beef produced in Korea, it is necessary to have differentiated taste and low price through cost reduction. By age and family group, people aged 30 - 40 years and single-person households are the main consumption group. As a result of this study, it is necessary to establish marketing strategies for producers such as rational pricing, safety, taste promotion, and small-scale sales to extend the demand for Hanwoo beef in the younger generation to enhance the competitiveness of the domestic beef market.