• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.39-57
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• 2012

The unabated influx of micro businesses has turned the Korean retailing market to a rat race, which causes severe financial distress for micro business owners due to heavy competition. The woes of these micro business owner's are exacerbated by the presence of large scale distributors such as Super Supermarket(SSM) and large discount stores. In summary, the Korean retail market is overburdened an uneconomically viable. Retailing has low barriers to entry which attracts unskilled labor or those with little capital. These start-ups have low opportunity costs since they would make low wages elsewhere in the economy. Thus, these owners are content with relatively low returns on their investment. These 'subsistence ventures' are maintained for economical viability rather than economic growth. These 'subsistence ventures' intensifies competition among small-scale businesses. The presence of large retail corporations also aggravates the situation. The recent stagnation of the economy has worsened the retail market in Korea. The overwhelming competition solidifies the coarse structural system and the prolonged economic sluggishness has increased the risk of insolvency for micro business owners. As the economy continues to stagnate, the imminent risk in retailing market will rise up to surface threatening economic stability. More systematic inflows and outflows of retailers are required in order to redress this structural problem. It has been empirically shown that the self-employment rate is high in Korea compared to other OECD countries. To draw the comparison of self-employment rate by industry, Korea shows high rates among transportation, whole sale, retail, education, lodging, and restaurants. In the case of the transportation and education service sectors, this high rate can be explained by the idiosyncratic nature of Korean culture. In the transportation sector, political policies favor private cap service and private freight carriers. In the education service sector, Koreans put particular emphasis on education that leads to many private institutions that outnumber other OECD countries. For these singular reasons, Korea maintains high micro business, self-employed rates particularly in retailing. A comparable nation is Japan, with its similar social, economic, cultural environment among OECD countries. Unlike Korea, Japan has much lower rates of micro business which continues to decrease. Also Korean retailers are much more destitute than Japanese. The fundamental problem of Korean retailing is the involuntary exit of these 'subsistence ventures,' micro businesses with low margins, in which a small drop in demand can lead to financial difficulties for the owner. This problem will be exacerbated when Korean babyboomers retire and join the micro business ventures. The first priority in order to cope with the severity of oversupply in retailing is to provide better opportunities for the potential self-employers. There should be viable alternatives to subsistent ventures. Strengthening the retirement program, scrutiny of exit process, reconfiguration of policy funds are the recommendations.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.247-267
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• 1993

According to developing international economy since the World War II, the increase and competition of the national business is so empha-sized tht both the interest and the necessity about marine transportation playing the impor-thant role of international transportation are increased. Today, the container transportation, as called the innovation of marine transport has been prevailed since the 1970's. The purpose of this paper is to grasp the spatial structure of the hinterlands and forelands, its object is export container cargo at Pusan Export Port, as known for the transportation node of modern containerlization. In this study, for the purpose of grasping the relation between hinterlands and forelands of Korean export container cargo, first, I researched the transition of carloading about container cargo, the bistribution channel of cargo, the change of the items of container and the carlo-adings about transport route, secondly, I used the cluster analysis so as to group hinterlands according to the items of goods and forelands. The object of the analysis is container cargo of Choyang Line, Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine of National Frag Carriers. The source materials used in this study are Trucking Data of Hanjin Co., Container Ren-tal Data of Samik Transport Co. and Transpor-ting Present Condition Tables of Hyundai Mer-chant Marine. 1. There are two kinds of the transport classi-fied by its form: FCL and LCL. In Pusan Con-tainer Export, a lot of textile goods, clothings and furniture, compound, electric goods, and so on are dealed with but the rate of occupation of the transport is getting lower while that of occupation of equipment, papers and agricultu-ral, mineral and livestock industry higher. 2. In 1990, the transports of container cargo in Korea consist of 7 services and round-the world lines. We can list North America lines, East-South Asian lines, Japan lines and Inter European lines, in order of the quantity of tran-sport form the largest to the smaller. We can have another list that Japan lines, North Ame-rica lines and East-South lines in order of the rate participation of national flag carriers, be-cacuse Korean foreign trade lay disproportionate emphasis on East-South Asian lines. Japan lines among them is the biggest import-export market. Since the rationlization policy of marine tran-sport in 1984, each of national flag carriers have its own lines. Hanjin Shipping predominates over North America lines, Choyang Line over New Zealand, Inter European and Austria lines and Hyundai Merchant Marine over Center-South America lines, in terms of the volume of transport. And small-to-medium sized shippers are prevailing in lines which are adjacent to Korea, Such as Japan lines and East-South Asian lines. 3. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Choyang Line, the light industry goods, electric goods and machinary produced in Seoul and Pusan are exported to the major ports in Europe and Japan, the same produces in Suwon, Ulsan, Kumi are exported to European Ports, and those in Incheon and Kwangju Austrian and Japanese ports, and those in the rest regions to the major port in Japan. 4. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hanjin Shipping, the light industry goods pro-ducing in Seoul and Pusan, the electric goods and machinary in Incheon and Pyeongteck, are exported to New York and Los Angeles. Electric goods and machinary Masan, Anyang, Cheona, Cheongju and Incheon, Electric goods machinary and light industry goods in Kwangju and non mental goods in Pohang, are exported New York, Los Angeles and Oakland. 5. In relation to hinterlands and forelands of Hyundai Merchant Marine, the region of Seoul, Pusan and Incheon closely related with the main ports in U.S.A. The rest regions with Montreal. The hinterlands of export container cargo can be classified by its export items into three kinds: the large city, industrial city and the rest city. Choyang Line's forelands are European lines, Japan lines and Austria lines, and Hanjin Shipping's forelands are North America lines, and Hyundai Merchant Marine's forelands are North America lines and Japan line. 3 National flag carriers' major forelands are determined by the size of port and the shipper's convenient use of the port terminal.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.73-89
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• 2021

The handysize bulk carriers are capable of transporting a variety of cargo that cannot be transported by mid-large size ship, and the spot chartering market is active, and it is a market that is independent of mid-large size market, and is more risky due to market conditions and charterage variability. In this study, Granger causality test, the Impulse Response Function(IRF) and Forecast Error Variance Decomposition(FEVD) were performed using monthly time series data. As a result of Granger causality test, coal price for coke making, Japan steel plate commodity price, hot rolled steel sheet price, fleet volume and bunker price have causality to Baltic Handysize Index(BHSI) and charterage. After confirming the appropriate lag and stability of the Vector Autoregressive model(VAR), IRF and FEVD were analyzed. As a result of IRF, the three variables of coal price for coke making, hot rolled steel sheet price and bunker price were found to have significant at both upper and lower limit of the confidence interval. Among them, the impulse of hot rolled steel sheet price was found to have the most significant effect. As a result of FEVD, the explanatory power that affects BHSI and charterage is the same in the order of hot rolled steel sheet price, coal price for coke making, bunker price, Japan steel plate price, and fleet volume. It was found that it gradually increased, affecting BHSI by 30% and charterage by 26%. In order to differentiate from previous studies and to find out the effect of short term lag, analysis was performed using monthly price data of major cargoes for Handysize bulk carriers, and meaningful results were derived that can predict monthly market conditions. This study can be helpful in predicting the short term market conditions for shipping companies that operate Handysize bulk carriers and concerned parties in the handysize chartering market.