• International Area Studies Review
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.49-67
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• 2008

In this paper, we address the problem of optimal monetary policy rule in the presence of abrupt shifts in the structure of the economy. To do so, we first estimate a Markov switching model for the US housing price inflation, and find evidence supporting the presence of two distinct regimes for the US housing price inflation. One of the two regimes identified appears 'usual', in that housing price inflation negatively responds to higher real interest rate. The other regime is 'unusual', in that the housing price inflation is positively related with real interest rate. We then solve an optimal control problem of the FRB under the presence of the two regimes thus identified. The optimal policy is 'asymmetric' in that the optimal responses in the 'usual' regime require the FRB to lean against the wind to inflationary pressure, while the FRB is recommended to accommodate it in the unusual regime. It is also found that the optimal degree of responses is more conservative when the FRB acknowledges the uncertainty about future regime.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.70-87
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to identify health care providers' perceptions about the goal achievement and benefit/loss caused by the separation policy of drug prescribing and dispensing after the policy implemented on July 1, 2001. Uslng stratified sampling method based on the administration area, Ku, 315 physicians and pharmacists were sampled from the rosters of physician and pharmacist association in the city of Busan on 2001. There were 122 and 115 responses from physician and pharmacist sample, respectively. 78.3% of physicians and 50.4% of pharmacists evaluated that the goal of the policy was not achieved. Moreover, 75.3% of physicians and 40.7% of pharmacists did not support the policy. Most physicians and pharmacists considered preventing the citizens with drug abuse and misuses as the most important benefit derived from the policy. However, physicians and pharmacists concerned over raising health care cost that could be patients' burden. The most important physicians' benefit derived from the policy was free choice of all possible medicine that might result in effectiveness of medication. In physicians' the most important loss, most physicians worried about that breaking traditional patient and physician relationship might cause physicians' authority in treating diseases to be damaged. Pharmacists considered the most important policy benefit as hiked social status resulted from enforcement of profession due to the policy whereas they considered the most significant loss as expected financial problems of small pharmacies compared to that of large pharmacies or pharmacies adjacent to hospitals. In the current problems of the policy, physician and pharmacists blamed the government for inadequate preparations of the policy implementation. Physicians and pharmacists also considered citizens' mature attitudes toward the policy as a crucial success factor.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.106-116
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• 2014

Purpose: In this paper issues and challenges of the workforce policy for nursing were explored and appropriate policy responses identified. Results: Many countries, including South Korea, are facing a shortage of nurses. In South Korea, the number of practicing registered nurses is about half the average for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries. The shortage of nurses is not necessarily a shortage of individuals with nursing qualifications but also includes complex issues, such as lack of well-educated nurses, shortage of nurses willing to work, and geographical imbalances of nurses. The present nurse workforce policies are to increase number of nursing schools, to reduce the length of training, and to replace nurses with nursing assistants. However, the findings of many studies have shown that these attempts resulted in a worsening of patient outcomes and increasingly low quality of care. Conclusion: The findings in this study indicate that nurse workforce policy should have a multi-faceted approach in order to address the many factors affecting nurse shortages.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.41-70
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• 2005

The object of the study is to examine the change of social-economic structure and poverty-shape to escape poverty. In Korea, the working poor have been increased by flexibility and division of labor market since the economic crisis in 1997, and are faced with hard conditions due to the vulnerable welfare system. Especially the workers who engage in irregular jobs were increased by restructure of labor market. Besides they are in unstable employment terms such as low payment, low-skill and exclusion from welfare-benefit. Many small independent businessmen are also in danger of poverty for enterprises trend to move abroad by globalization. Poverty policy in our country was focused on the absolute poor class that has relation with old age, unemployment, disable, disease etc, so they were the object of welfare policy. The poverties, however, are increasing rapidly after the economic crisis, and they work so hard but are still poor, that is, participation in labor market doesn't become an element to escape poverty. Thus the emergence of new poverties whose core consists of the working poor becomes to need new poverty policy. The study is to survey change of their economic conditions, their welfare conditions, their experiences and responses of social dangers after the economic crisis, then to explore the policy to escape poverty. As the result of the study, it shows that the working poor experienced many kinds of social dangers like unemployment, decrease of income etc. In their welfare conditions as their responses to the social dangers, the benefit of social insurance, enterprise welfare like legal retirement pay and paid leave and private welfare such as private pension and insurance are low. The working poor are faced with social dangers, moreover, they don't have skill or education for adapting themselves to information society. The study says that it needs variable policies for the working poor to escape poverty, and suggests payment & tax policies as stable income policy, occupational discipline and skill-education for promoting the quality of employment, moreover, social insurance as expansion of social welfare policy and housing & education policies whose objects are the working poor.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.136-143
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• 2016

Garlic and onion are staple agricultural products to Koreans and also are important with regard to agricultural producers' income. These products' acreage responses are highly correlated with each other. Therefore, it is necessary to test whether there is a cointegration relationship between garlic acreage and onion acreage when one tries to estimate the acreage response's function. Based upon the test result of cointegration, it is confirmed that there is no statistically significant cointegration relationship between garlic acreage and onion acreage. In this case, vector autoregressive model is preferred to vector error correction model. This study investigated the dynamic relationship between garlic and onion acreage responses using vector autoregressive (VAR) model. The estimated results of VAR acreage response models show that there is a statistically significant relationship between current and lagged acreage of more than one lag. Therefore, it is recommended that government should consider the long-run period's relationship of each product's acreage when it plans a policy for stabilizing the supply and demand of garlic and onion. For the price variables, garlic price only affects garlic acreage response while onion price affects not only onion acreage response but also garlic acreage response. This implies that the stabilizing policy for onion price could have bigger effects than that for garlic price stabilization.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.56-78
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• 2020

Changes in our lives due to Artificial Intelligence (AI) are currently ongoing, and there is little refutation of the effectiveness of AI. However, there have been active discussions to minimize the side effects of AI and use it responsibly, and publishing the AI Charter of Ethics (AICE) is one result of it. This study examines how our society is responding to threats from AI that may emerge in the future by examining various AIECs in the Republic of Korea. First, we summarize seven AI threats and classify these into three categories: AI's value judgment, malicious use of AI, and human alienation. Second, from Korea's seven AICEs, we draw fourteen topics based on three categories: protection of social values, AI control, and fostering digital citizenship. Finally, we review them based on the seven AI threats to evaluate any gaps between the threats and our responses. The analysis indicates that Korea has not yet been able to properly respond to the threat of AI's usurpation of human occupations (jobs). In addition, although Korea's AICEs present appropriate responses to lethal AI weapons, these provisions will be difficult to realize because the competition for AI weapons among military powers is intensifying.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.25-38
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is constructing a regional-level crop acreage choice model incorporating the impacts of producer risk aversion, and applying the constructed model to the Korean policy that promotes rice paddy conversion into non-rice crop fields. The study adopts the approach of Paris (2018) which estimates the absolute risk aversion coefficient inside of a positive mathematical programming model. A panel data set of 143 cities/counties is used for the empirical study where agricultural land in each region is allocated to 8 crops. Our estimated absolute risk aversion coefficients are smaller than those of Paris (2018), but are a little bit larger than those of the existing Korea studies based on survey or econometric methods. We found that there are close relationships among the estimated risk aversion, regional characteristics, and farming patterns. We also found that incorporating the estimated risk attitudes results in substantial differences in the impacts of the rice paddy conversion policy.

• Journal of Society of Preventive Korean Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2024

Objectives : This study aims to systematically examine the determinants of the intention to take herbal medicine among individuals with experience in Korean medicine. Methods : This study utilized the 3,245 respondents from the 2020 Korean Medicine Utilization and Herbal Medicine Consumption Survey who reported having used Korean medical services; the responses were selected through a complex sample analysis, and analytics techniques including frequency analysis, Rao-scott chisquare test, and logistic regression were used to analyze the responses. Results : The results of data analysis reveal that the intention to take herbal medicine in the future among these individuals was significantly influenced by factors such as enrollment in private health insurance, the facility environment of Korean medical institutions, and treatment outcomes. Conclusions : Therefore, it is imperative for Korean medical institutions to continuously try reasonable action strategies, including improving medical facilities/environments and building institutional mechanisms among medical staff and members to enhance the quality of Korean medical services. Additionally, the Ministry of Health and Welfare needs to make policy efforts to reduce patients' medical expenses, such as reducing the co-insurance rate in the pilot project of applying health insurance to herbal medicine.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.527-534
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• 2006

Demand side management(DSM) is the newly raised issues in the water resources management in recent. Many of the policy tools among demand management, the most important measures might be a pricing system. Furthermore, the responses of consumers on the price for water consumption level is the key factor for policy making. Here, we estimated panel data for 167 regions and over 7 years periods in Korea. Compare to other previous studies the price elasticities were somewhat low. The estimated price elasticity was -0.05. It was because the short term estimated period may derive lower elasticities. However, it might be a recent trend after the continuous increment of water pricing and consumers not willing to decrease their residential water consumption with increasing water pricing. According to this results, water saving effect might be much smaller than we expect with pricing policy. However, It does not imply there is no price effects on water consumption and it's still meaningful as a tool of water management.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2013

A new form of software piracy known as digital piracy has taken the spotlight. Lost revenues due to digital piracy could reach 2,500 billion won in year 2010 alone. This paper examines the causal relationships among the attitude toward digital piracy, subjective norm, economic gain, political efficacy, school policy, etc, in a university setting. Results from survey responses indicate that the social norm and economic gain affect the attitude toward digital piracy, and that school policy influences the subjective norm as well as political efficacy. But, contrary to our expectation, political efficacy has been found to have no impact on the social norm and economic gain. Prior learning experiences have been shown to affect economic gain, but not the subjective norm. As a conclusion, the academic and practical implications of these findings are discussed.