• Title/Summary/Keyword: Economic Policy Uncertainty

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Preliminary Evaluation of Domestic Applicability of Deep Borehole Disposal System (심부시추공 처분시스템의 국내적용 가능성 예비 평가)

  • Lee, Jongyoul;Lee, Minsoo;Choi, Heuijoo;Kim, Kyungsu;Cho, Dongkeun
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.491-505
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    • 2018
  • As an alternative to deep geological disposal technology, which is considered as a reference concept, the domestic applicability of deep borehole disposal technology for high level radioactive waste, including spent fuel, has been preliminarily evaluated. Usually, the environment of deep borehole disposal, at a depth of 3 to 5 km, has more stable geological and geo-hydrological conditions. For this purpose, the characteristics of rock distribution in the domestic area were analyzed and drilling and investigation technologies for deep boreholes with large diameter were evaluated. Based on the results of these analyses, design criteria and requirements for the deep borehole disposal system were reviewed, and preliminary reference concept for a deep borehole disposal system, including disposal container and sealing system meeting the criteria and requirements, was developed. Subsequently, various performance assessments, including thermal stability analysis of the system and simulation of the disposal process, were performed in a 3D graphic disposal environment. With these analysis results, the preliminary evaluation of the domestic applicability of the deep borehole disposal system was performed from various points of view. In summary, due to disposal depth and simplicity, the deep borehole disposal system should bring many safety and economic benefits. However, to reduce uncertainty and to obtain the assent of the regulatory authority, an in-situ demonstration of this technology should be carried out. The current results can be used as input to establish a national high-level radioactive waste management policy. In addition, they may be provided as basic information necessary for stakeholders interested in deep borehole disposal technology.

Dynamic Limit and Predatory Pricing Under Uncertainty (불확실성하(不確實性下)의 동태적(動態的) 진입제한(進入制限) 및 약탈가격(掠奪價格) 책정(策定))

  • Yoo, Yoon-ha
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.151-166
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    • 1991
  • In this paper, a simple game-theoretic entry deterrence model is developed that integrates both limit pricing and predatory pricing. While there have been extensive studies which have dealt with predation and limit pricing separately, no study so far has analyzed these closely related practices in a unified framework. Treating each practice as if it were an independent phenomenon is, of course, an analytical necessity to abstract from complex realities. However, welfare analysis based on such a model may give misleading policy implications. By analyzing limit and predatory pricing within a single framework, this paper attempts to shed some light on the effects of interactions between these two frequently cited tactics of entry deterrence. Another distinctive feature of the paper is that limit and predatory pricing emerge, in equilibrium, as rational, profit maximizing strategies in the model. Until recently, the only conclusion from formal analyses of predatory pricing was that predation is unlikely to take place if every economic agent is assumed to be rational. This conclusion rests upon the argument that predation is costly; that is, it inflicts more losses upon the predator than upon the rival producer, and, therefore, is unlikely to succeed in driving out the rival, who understands that the price cutting, if it ever takes place, must be temporary. Recently several attempts have been made to overcome this modelling difficulty by Kreps and Wilson, Milgram and Roberts, Benoit, Fudenberg and Tirole, and Roberts. With the exception of Roberts, however, these studies, though successful in preserving the rationality of players, still share one serious weakness in that they resort to ad hoc, external constraints in order to generate profit maximizing predation. The present paper uses a highly stylized model of Cournot duopoly and derives the equilibrium predatory strategy without invoking external constraints except the assumption of asymmetrically distributed information. The underlying intuition behind the model can be summarized as follows. Imagine a firm that is considering entry into a monopolist's market but is uncertain about the incumbent firm's cost structure. If the monopolist has low cost, the rival would rather not enter because it would be difficult to compete with an efficient, low-cost firm. If the monopolist has high costs, however, the rival will definitely enter the market because it can make positive profits. In this situation, if the incumbent firm unwittingly produces its monopoly output, the entrant can infer the nature of the monopolist's cost by observing the monopolist's price. Knowing this, the high cost monopolist increases its output level up to what would have been produced by a low cost firm in an effort to conceal its cost condition. This constitutes limit pricing. The same logic applies when there is a rival competitor in the market. Producing a high cost duopoly output is self-revealing and thus to be avoided. Therefore, the firm chooses to produce the low cost duopoly output, consequently inflicting losses to the entrant or rival producer, thus acting in a predatory manner. The policy implications of the analysis are rather mixed. Contrary to the widely accepted hypothesis that predation is, at best, a negative sum game, and thus, a strategy that is unlikely to be played from the outset, this paper concludes that predation can be real occurence by showing that it can arise as an effective profit maximizing strategy. This conclusion alone may imply that the government can play a role in increasing the consumer welfare, say, by banning predation or limit pricing. However, the problem is that it is rather difficult to ascribe any welfare losses to these kinds of entry deterring practices. This difficulty arises from the fact that if the same practices have been adopted by a low cost firm, they could not be called entry-deterring. Moreover, the high cost incumbent in the model is doing exactly what the low cost firm would have done to keep the market to itself. All in all, this paper suggests that a government injunction of limit and predatory pricing should be applied with great care, evaluating each case on its own basis. Hasty generalization may work to the detriment, rather than the enhancement of consumer welfare.

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Real Option Analysis to Value Government Risk Share Liability in BTO-a Projects (손익공유형 민간투자사업의 투자위험분담 가치 산정)

  • KU, Sukmo;LEE, Sunghoon;LEE, Seungjae
    • Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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    • v.35 no.4
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    • pp.360-373
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    • 2017
  • The BTO-a projects is the types, which has a demand risk among the type of PPP projects in Korea. When demand risk is realized, private investor encounters financial difficulties due to lower revenue than its expectation and the government may also have a problem in stable infrastructure operation. In this regards, the government has applied various risk sharing policies in response to demand risk. However, the amount of government's risk sharing is the government's contingent liabilities as a result of demand uncertainty, and it fails to be quantified by the conventional NPV method of expressing in the text of the concession agreement. The purpose of this study is to estimate the value of investment risk sharing by the government considering the demand risk in the profit sharing system (BTO-a) introduced in 2015 as one of the demand risk sharing policy. The investment risk sharing will take the form of options in finance. Private investors have the right to claim subsidies from the government when their revenue declines, while the government has the obligation to pay subsidies under certain conditions. In this study, we have established a methodology for estimating the value of investment risk sharing by using the Black - Scholes option pricing model and examined the appropriateness of the results through case studies. As a result of the analysis, the value of investment risk sharing is estimated to be 12 billion won, which is about 4% of the investment cost of the private investment. In other words, it can be seen that the government will invest 12 billion won in financial support by sharing the investment risk. The option value when assuming the traffic volume risk as a random variable from the case studies is derived as an average of 12.2 billion won and a standard deviation of 3.67 billion won. As a result of the cumulative distribution, the option value of the 90% probability interval will be determined within the range of 6.9 to 18.8 billion won. The method proposed in this study is expected to help government and private investors understand the better risk analysis and economic value of better for investment risk sharing under the uncertainty of future demand.

Consistency in the Basic Plan on Electricity Demand and Supply and Social Costs (전력수급기본계획의 정합성과 사회적 비용)

  • LEE, Suil
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.34 no.2
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    • pp.55-93
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    • 2012
  • In Korea, energy policies are actualized through various energy-related plans. Recently, however, as high-ranking plans, which are very vision-oriented, continually set higher sector-by-sector goals, subordinate action plans, which require consistency, encounter distortions in their establishment process. Also, each subordinate action plan reveals limitations in terms of securing flexibility of the plan in responding to uncertainties of the future. These problems pose potential risks such as causing huge social costs. In this regard, with an aim to provide empirical evidence for discussions on improving the procedure for developing and executing Korea's energy plans, this study mainly analyzes the Basic Plan on Electricity Demand and Supply-one of the most important subordinate action plans-in order to explain the problems of the Basic Plan in a logical manner, and potential problems that could occur in the process of sustaining consistency between the Basic Plan and its higher-ranking plans. Further, this paper estimates the scale of social costs caused by those problems assuming realistic conditions. According to the result, in the case of where maximum electric power is estimated to be 7% (15%) less than the actual amount in the Basic Plan on Electricity Demand and Supply, the annual generation cost will rise by 286 billion won and (1.2 trillion won) in 2020. Such social costs are found to occur even when establishing and executing the Basic plan according to the target goal set by its higher-ranking plan, the National Energy Master Plan. In addition, when another higher-ranking GHG reduction master plan requires the electricity sector to reduce emissions by additional 5% in the GHG emissions from the right mix in electricity generation with 'zero' cost of carbon emission, the annual generation cost will rise by approximately 915 billion won in 2020. On the other hand, the analysis finds that since economic feasibility of electric powers in Korea varies significantly depending on their type, Korea is expected to face very small potential social costs caused by uncertainties over the future price of carbon dioxide in the process of establishing the Basic Plan.

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A Study on Jeju High School Students' Health Perception and Health Promotion Behavior (제주지역 고등학생의 건강지각과 건강증진 행위에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Ok-Sun;Choi, In-Sook
    • The Journal of Korean Society for School & Community Health Education
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    • v.3
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    • pp.79-110
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    • 2002
  • The purpose of this study was to provide basic data necessary for creating a more successful health enhancement program, health education and health policy which can enhance health management abilities and enable a healthy school life by examining relations between high school students' health perception, who are in early adolescence, and their health promotion behavior. The subjects in this study were 813 students from 8 high schools on Jeju Island. The collected data were analyzed with t-test and one-way ANOVA through questionnaires by researcher on the basis of advance research. The findings of this study were as belows : 1. When general characteristics were considered, health perception was more significantly affected by those who were boys, whose family income was on a higher level, who scored better in school, whose parents were more concerned about their children's health, and who had experiences of being hospitalized. Especially, the more parents were concerned about their children's health, the higher the child's self-confidence on health(p<.05), anxiety on health(p<.05), practicality on disease prevention(p<.05), self-confidence on future health(p<.01), health care ability(p<.01), and family roles on health(p<.05). The less parents were concerned about their children's health, the higher the child's anxiety on disease(p<.01) and uncertainty on future health(p<.01). 2. When students' health promotion behavior was concerned, in the area of Eating Habits, having regular meals(72.9%), moderate consumption of meat(89.7%) and a balanced diet(64%) were common, whereas having a regular breakfast(37.4%) and eating vegetables and fruits(43.6%) were rare. In the area of Exercise, all subareas such as exercising 3 or 4 times a week(76.7%), more than one hour of exercise at a time(74.9%), a short distance walk(51.8%), exercise within one hour after meals(87%), and whether wanning up or not(88.6%) were above average. In the area of Personal Hygiene, all subareas such as drinking boiled water(57.3%), washing hands after using the bathroom(71%), brushing teeth after eating(42.4%), washing up after going out(50.3%), and washing hair and taking a frequent bath(77.2%) were rare. In the area of Control of Personal Relations, consulting personal problems with family(78.7%) had a positive response, whereas meeting someone new(59.8%), maintaining sound relations with the opposite sex(47.3%), having respect for one's opinion(51.5%), and maintaining peaceful relations with people(58.4%) had rare negative results. In the area of Stress Management, not being competitive(69.4%), releasing problems(62.4%) and sleeping soundly(66.2%) were common, whereas having your own ways to relieve stress(46.8%) and having your own dreams and hopes(58.5%) were rare. 3. When general characteristics were considered, as far as relations of health promotion behavior were concerned, the boys were significantly different in the area of Eating Habits(p<0.01) and Exercise(p<0.01), and the girls were in the area of Personal Hygiene. As family economic status was high and parents were concerned about their children's health, the entire areas of health promotion behavior were significantly different. Whether or not they were hospitalized made no significant difference in statistics. 4. When their regions were considered, it comparing city to town, there was no statistically significant difference in health perception and relations of health promotion behavior according to general characteristics. As seen in the results above, high school students' level of health perception and level of practicing health promotion behavior were generally low. In conclusion, by enhancing health perception, a plan for activating health education, which can implement positive health promotion behavior, should be made.

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Technology Innovation Activity and Default Risk (기술혁신활동이 부도위험에 미치는 영향 : 한국 유가증권시장 및 코스닥시장 상장기업을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Jin-Su
    • Journal of Technology Innovation
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.55-80
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    • 2009
  • Technology innovation activity plays a pivotal role in constructing the entrance barrier for other firms and making process improvement and new product. and these activities give a profit increase and growth to firms. Thus, technology innovation activity can reduce the default risk of firms. However, technology innovation activity can also increase the firm's default risk because technology innovation activity requires too much investment of the firm's resources and has the uncertainty on success. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of technology innovation activity on the default risk of firms. This study's sample consists of manufacturing firms listed on the Korea Securities Market and The Kosdaq Market from January 1,2000 to December 31, 2008. This study makes use of R&D intensity as an proxy variable of technology innovation activity. The default probability which proxies the default risk of firms is measured by the Merton's(l974) debt pricing model. The main empirical results are as follows. First, from the empirical results, it is found that technology innovation activity has a negative and significant effect on the default risk of firms independent of the Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market. In other words, technology innovation activity reduces the default risk of firms. Second, technology innovation activity reduces the default risk of firms independent of firm size, firm age, and credit score. Third, the results of robust analysis also show that technology innovation activity is the important factor which decreases the default risk of firms. These results imply that a manager must show continuous interest and investment in technology innovation activity of one's firm. And a policymaker also need design an economic policy to promote the technology innovation activity of firms.

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