• Title/Summary/Keyword: Government Transparency

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Expansion of the Government Procurement Agreement: Time to Concentrate on Depth as well as Width

  • Yang, Junsok
    • East Asian Economic Review
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.363-394
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    • 2012
  • WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) was designed to liberalize and expand trade in government procurement. Revised GPA was implemented in 1996 and the latest revision was completed (but not yet implemented) in 2012, but as a plurilateral agreement. Since the end of the UR, there has been attempts by various WTO members to liberalize trade in the government procurement market - through an expansion of Parties who are signatories to GPA, and through a negotiated agreement on transparency in government procurement. The attempt to expand the Parties who are signatories to the GPA - attempt to increase the width of the coverage of the agreement - has been somewhat successful, but I argue that the goal should be to further liberate the government procurement markets of the current Party members - to reduce thresholds and other barriers which limit market access even to other GPA members, in other words, to increase the depth of coverage. Taking cue from Korea's FTA, I propose a two-level liberalization of the government procurement market under the GPA: A "light" level which would be the same as the current level of liberalization; and a "deep" level with lower thresholds and less exemptions. I argue that, as seen in Korea, with FTAs, many GPA Parties already have multiple levels of liberalization (i.e, spaghetti-bowl effect of FTAs), but by limiting the levels of liberalization to two, we can seek the best of deep liberalization but reduce the spaghetti-bowl effect.

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Quasi-fiscal Activities of the Bank of Korea (한국은행의 준(準)재정활동)

  • Koh, Youngsun
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.99-145
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    • 2003
  • Quasi-fiscal activities (QFAs) refer to those activities that public corporations carry out to achieve policy objectives of the government. QFAs often lead to the understatement of the government involvement in the economy and the overstatement of its financial balance, thereby lowering fiscal transparency and hiding fiscal risks. Central banks, as public corporations, perform various QFAs in many countries. I define QFAs in this case as those activities that are not directly related to the intrinsic function of central banks, whose responsibility lies in the administration of monetary policy and the provision of banking services for the government and commercial banks. In Korea, the Bank of Korea (BOK) has been an active source of QFAs. Of particular importance are the policy loans to commercial banks to promote their lending to small- and medium-sized enterprises and others. The outstanding stock of policy loans increased rapidly in the aftermath of the recent economic crisis, and stood at 7.6 trillion won (20 percent of the reserve money) at the end of 2002. Another important QFA by BOK stems from the transfer of part of its profits to the central government. The accumulated transfer during 1998-2002 amounted to 9.9 trillion won. My calculation shows that if these and other QFAs had been carried out by the government as explicit fiscal activities, the consolidated central government financial balance would have been below the actual balance by about 0.5 percent of GDP in each year since the economic crisis. It is suggested that the QFAs by BOK be reduced in coming years not only to enhance fiscal transparency but also to expand the flexibility of BOK's reserve management. Abolishing policy loans and minimizing transfers to the government would be the first step in this direction. BOK should also consider paying interest on the government deposit held in BOK.

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A Implementation of Blockchain based Manufacturing Supply Chain Tracking System (블록체인 기반 제조 공급망 추적 시스템 구현)

  • Lee, Jae-Ho;Nam, Ho-Ki
    • Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.183-188
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    • 2017
  • Block Chain is a technology that records and shares distributed ledgers without a central authority, providing a decentralized platform for transparent transactions in the business and enhancing transparency and traceability in all transactions to ensure trust in the transaction. Despite initial doubts about this technology, it is committed to adopting, adapting and improving the technology in a wide range of industries, including finance, government, security, logistics, food, medical, legal, and real estate. This study examines this technology, its applicability and potential benefits to the manufacturing supply chain. A tracking system of manufacturing supply chain to visualize transparency and traceability is implemented, and the conditions for adopting the technology in the manufacturing supply chain and the issues to be addressed are discussed.

A Study on the Participatory Government's Presidential Archives : Focusing on Re-organization of Records and Archives (참여정부 대통령기록 연구 기록 재조직을 중심으로)

  • Kwak, Kun-hong
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.61
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    • pp.5-29
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    • 2019
  • The presidential archives of Participating Government were left as a result of record production innovation. The record proves the whole process of decision making and serves as a means of enhancing transparency and accountability. This article analyzed the existence form of records and asserted the necessity of reorganization. In the direction of the re-organization of records, we proposed a redesign of the record classification system, logical re-registration of records, and description of record detail information. In order to facilitate the use of the archives, the Presidential Archives should proceed with these tasks at the earliest opportunity.

The Comparative Research on the Fisheries Resource Management Policy of Korea, China and Japan (한ㆍ중ㆍ일간 어업관리정책의 비교와 자원공동관리에 대한 검토)

  • 옥영수;최성애
    • The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.65-88
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    • 1998
  • The sustainable reduction of the fisheries resource is keenly raised an urgent problem of the fisheries policy in Korea, China and Japan. Then, 3 country, Korea, Japan, China, have established various system for fisheries resource management. Among these systems, qualitative fishing regulations have been commonly established. For example, its have been enforced to the prohibited fishing region, fishing period, fish size, net size, specified fishing methods. Also, different fisheries resource management policies have occasionally enforced by each country. For example, the prohibition of free sale and free possession has been established in Korea and Japan, but not China. And, In Korea, It has been enforced uniquely to entry system far fishing license number ana sea farming project for coastal fishing grounds by national government. The entry system for fishing license number has been enforced in Japan too, not national government, but local government. Nevertheless these three countries have put good system for fisheries resource management above mentioned, real enforcement has been not operated well. For efficient management on same fisheries, next problem will have been solved. First, it has to be guaranteed to transparency on the fisheries management, which is considered the priority problem on the fishing regulation. For reason, although efficient system is established in each country, if feasibility of the system was not trusted, mutual effort like that is very difficult to gain desired results. Then, each country has to establish transparency on the fisheries statistics and administration. Second, it has to be adjusting on the criteria or level of fisheries resource management. Now Korea, Japan and China have different criteria or level of fisheries resource management, for, example, prohibited fish size and prohibited fishing net sine. To solve above problems, three countries need to deeply discuss together. Then fisheries resource co-management scheme should be established in same fishing ground.

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A Historical Approach to the Development of Democracy and the Archival Society in Korea (한국 기록관리와 '거버넌스'에 대한 역사적 접근)

  • OH, Hang-Nyeong
    • The Korean Journal of Archival Studies
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    • no.11
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    • pp.15-40
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    • 2005
  • 'Governance' is a subject that is widely discussed these days in the government and the academic world. I think that the new concept, 'governance', is a strategy to develop the democracy of the society in its institutional and functional aspects. When we are going to discuss about governance, public records and their relationships, without understanding the meaning of 'public' in Korea, we cannot expect to discuss the matter precisely. It is said that Korean public service sectors are awash with authoritarianism and unreasonableness, and that they are at the center of seething corruption and bribe scandals. It is the legacy that the regimes adopted in the aftermath of the Japanese colonial rule for 35 years. The colonial legacy included not simply the practice of the Japanese colony, but also people who had collaborated the Japanese. The American military government and Rhee, Sung-Man regime also appointed the same officials to government posts. As was the same case in other areas including economy, press, education, politics, law, etc. In this point of view, "Righting historical wrongs", a controversial issue now in Korea, aims at establishing the right relationships between an individual and the public, and eventually laying the foundation of democracy for future generation, a procedure of achieving good governance. Apparently, Korea has made progress in developing democracy, as well as in reforming the government policy and organization. Many independent commissions are performing the projects instead of the government institutions that mandated to do the job, but has not played their roles. The e-government projects in Korea was launched in 2001 by the former administration. However, the confusion of records-management after the promulgation of the act is the result of the lack of strategy and the inconsistency of the vision. Good record-keeping supports effective, transparent and accountable government. Accountability is a key element of good governance. It is a recognized fact that without information, there is no guidance for decision-making, and accountability. Thus without records, there is no accountability for the decisions of actions. Transparency means that the decisions taken and their enforcement are carried out based on led-out rules and regulations. When both accountability and transparency are non-existent, good governance is bound to fail. Archival institutions have to give an attention to inner-governance because of the new trend of archival practice, namely 'macro-appraisal'. This 'macro-appraisal' is a kind of a functions-based approach. However, macro-appraisal focuses not just on function, but on the three-way interaction of function, structure and citizen, which combined reflect the functioning of the state within civil society, that is to say, its governance. In conclusion, the public and democracy are major challenges in the Korean society. The so-called good governance requires good record management. In this respect, records managers are in the front line of instituting good governance, and achieving better public and democracy for future generation, a procedure of achieving good governance.

Political Instability and Inward Foreign Direct Investment: The Perspective of Government Corruption from an Emerging Economy (정치적 불안정과 외국인 직접 투자: 신흥국 정부부패의 관점)

  • Bokhari, Syed Asad Abbas;Aftab, Muhammad;Shahid, Manzoor
    • Industry Promotion Research
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    • v.6 no.4
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    • pp.69-81
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    • 2021
  • Pakistan is a South Asian auspicious developing country. Based on the corruption perception index report 2020 by transparency international, Pakistan has ranked 124 with total scores of 31 globally and 188 ranks with a score of -2.25 in terms of political stability ranging from 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest). More crucially, the inflow of foreign direct investment toward Pakistan has declined between 2008 and 2019. Though political instability and government corruption have both positive and negative linear relationships with foreign direct investment, we tested the moderating impact of government corruption between political instability and inward foreign direct investment over time. We also tested the relationship between political instability and inward foreign direct investment in different phases of political regimes in the same country. Our results suggested that authoritarian regimes attracted more inward foreign direct investment than that during democratic periods of government. Furthermore, we found that there was low inward foreign direct investment when government corruption was high in the country. However, government corruption weakened the positive relationship between political instability and inward foreign direct investment (FDI).

Mediating Role of Liquidity Policy on the Corporate Governance-Performance Link: Evidence from Pakistan

  • TAHIR, Safdar Husain;SADIQUE, Muhammad Abu Bakar;SYED, Nausheen;REHMAN, Faiza;ULLAH, Muhammad Rizwan
    • The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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    • v.7 no.8
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    • pp.15-23
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    • 2020
  • Based on the theoretical underpinnings of the agency theory and liquidity theory, the purpose of this study is to show how managers who want to enhance the performance of Pakistan's non-financial sector can use liquidity policy in relation to corporate governance. Nowadays, Pakistan is facing a severe liquidity crisis; this study contributes by examining the mediating role of liquidity on the link of corporate governance-performance. We use data from 63 firms from 2010 to 2018, excluding 17 outliers. To analyze the data, we use the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE) model and nlcom-Stata test. Our findings support the mediating role of liquidity on the link between corporate governance and performance. In addition, the results show that corporate governance improves performance. Furthermore, the study supports a significant positive association of liquidity and performance. For robustness, we use two performance variables - return on assets (ROA) and Tobin's q (TQ) - where ROA represents full mediation and TQ indicates partial mediation. This study helps to use liquidity policy to strengthen the inside and outside dimensions of corporate governance mechanisms that improve the performance of firms. Overall, these findings suggest better disclosure, transparency, and solutions to auditing issues that add value to the firms.

Seoul PACT : Principles of Artificial Intelligence Ethics and its Application Example to Intelligent E-Government Service (인공지능 윤리 원칙 Seoul PACT를 적용한 지능형 전자정부 서비스 윤리 가이드라인)

  • Kim, Myuhng Joo
    • Journal of Information Technology Services
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.117-128
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    • 2019
  • The remarkable achievements of the artificial intelligence in recent years are also raising awareness about its potential risks. Several governments and public organizations have been proposing the artificial intelligence ethics for sustainable development of artificial intelligence by minimizing potential risks. However, most existing proposals are focused on the developer-centered ethics, which is not sufficient for the comprehensive ethics required for ongoing intelligent information society. In addition, they have chosen a number of principles as the starting point of artificial intelligence ethics, so it is not easy to derive the guideline flexibly for a specific member reflecting its own situation. In this paper, we classify primitive members who need artificial intelligence ethics in intelligent information society into three : Developer, Supplier and User. We suggest a new artificial intelligence ethics, Seoul PACT, with minimal principles through publicness (P), accountability (A), controllability (C), and transparency (T). In addition, we provide 38 canonical guidelines based on these four principles, which are applicable to each primitive members. It is possible for a specific member to duplicate the roles of primitive members, so that the flexible derivation of the artificial intelligence ethics guidelines can be made according to the characteristics of the member reflecting its own situation. As an application example, in preparation for applying artificial intelligence to e-government service, we derive a full set of artificial intelligence ethics guideline from Seoul PACT, which can be adopted by the special member named Korean Government.

Digital Government Application: A Case Study of the Korean Civil Documents using Blockchain-based Resource Management Model

  • Hanbi Jeong;Jihae Suh;Jinsoo Park;Hanul Jung
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.32 no.4
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    • pp.830-856
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    • 2022
  • The Digital Government landscape is changing to reflect how governments try to discover innovative digital solutions, and how they transform themselves in the process. In addition, with the advent of information and communication technology (ICT), e-governance became an essential part of the government. Among the services provided by the Korean government, the Minwon24 online portal is the most used one. However, it has some processing limitations, namely: (1) it provides a cumbersome document authenticity service; (2) people cannot know what happened even if the agency handles the documents arbitrarily. To address the issues outlined above, blockchain processing can be a good alternative. It has a tremendous potential in that it has maximum transparency and a low risk of being hacked. Resource management is one of the areas where blockchain is frequently used. The present study suggests a new model based on blockchain for Minwon24; the proposed model is a type of resource management. There are three participants: issuer, owner and receiver. The proposed model has two stages: issuing and exchanging. Issuing is creating civil documents on the database, which is BigchainDB in this study. Exchanging, the next stage, is a transaction between the owner and the receiver. Based on this model, the actual program is built with the programming language Python. To evaluate the model, the study uses various criteria and it shows the excellence of the model in comparison to others in prior research.