• Health Policy and Management
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.243-252
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• 2023

This paper aims to introduce Korea's total current health expenditure (CHE) and National Health Accounts of the year 2021 and their 2022 preliminary figures constructed on the basis of the System of Health Accounts 2011. As CHE includes expenditures for prevention, tracking, and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and compensation for losses to medical institutions from 2020, the details are also introduced. Korea's total CHE in 2021 is 193.3 trillion won, which is 9.3% of gross domestic product (GDP). The preliminary figure in 2022, 209.0 trillion won, exceeded the 200 trillion won line for the first time, and its "ratio to GDP" of 9.7% is expected to exceed the average of Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development member countries for the first time. Korea's health expenditures, which were well controlled until the end of the 20th century, have increased at an alarming rate since the beginning of the 21st century, threatening the sustainability of national health insurance. The increase in health expenditure after 2020 is partly due to a temporary increase in response to COVID-19. However, when considering the structure of Korea's health insurance price hike, where the ratchet effect of increased medical expenses works particularly strongly, it is unlikely that the accelerating growth trend that has lasted for more than 20 years will stop easily. More aggressive policies to control medical expenses are required in the national health insurance which not only constitutes the main financing sources of the Korean health system but also has the most powerful policy means in effect for changes in the health care provision.

• The Journal of Bigdata
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2023

Nowadays, the Designated Driver Services employ dynamic pricing, which adapts in real-time based on nearby driver availability, service user volume, and current weather conditions during the user's request. The uncertain volatility is the main cause of price increases, leading to customer attrition and service refusal from driver. To make a good Designated Driver Services, development of a demand forecasting model is required. In this study, we propose developing a demand forecasting model using data from the Designated Driver Service by considering normal and peak periods, such as rush hour and rush day, as prior knowledge to enhance the model performance. We propose a new methodology called Time-Series with Conditional Probability(TSCP), which combines conditional probability and time-series models to enhance performance. Extensive experiments have been conducted with real Designated Driver Service data, and the result demonstrated that our method outperforms the existing time-series models such as SARIMA, Prophet. Therefore, our study can be considered for decision-making to facilitate proactive response in Designated Driver Services.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.249-264
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• 2011

Brand is the major enduring asset of a company and more valuable than the totality of specific products and facilities. Thus brands are powerful assets that must be carefully developed and managed. The company should design and implement marketing activities and marketing communication programs to build and grow the brand value. Strarbucks, Samsung Galaxy, and Nike brands get a price premium and generate strong customer loyalty. A power brand has high brand equity, which is the differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand. Brand equity is created when brands have strong, favorable and unique brand associations with customers and high level of brand awareness. Therefore marketers in building a strong brand should ensure to develop the right type of customer experiences with products and effective integrated marketing communication(IMC) programs to create the brand equity. Since 2007 Sinhan card acquiring the LG card has developed the new brand identity and carefully managed the advertising campaign and other marketing communication mix tools to create the high brand awareness and differential brand image. In this case study we examine how Sinhan card with the goal of being No.1 brand in the credit card market has developed and implemented the IMC Strategy to build a high level of consumer brand awareness, unique brand image and strong customer relationship.

• Journal of Ginseng Culture
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• v.6
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• pp.116-134
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• 2024

This study aimed to identify the issues in Korean ginseng exports through analyzing the ginseng market. Therefore, the study examined the current ginseng production status in South Korea and China, the major ginseng-producing countries in Northeast Asia, including cultivated areas, harvested areas, and production volumes. For South Korea, specific data on ginseng, such as average prices, operating costs, and production costs, were compiled to demonstrate the production competitiveness of Korean ginseng from a production perspective. Furthermore, as major ginseng-exporting countries, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong's export trends, including export quantities, export values, and export prices, as well as crucial export items and tariff rates, were summarized to showcase the export competitiveness of Korean ginseng. Additionally, this study aimed to understand the consumption patterns of ginseng in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan by presenting various cases and events in these countries. Based on information related to production, export, and consumption, this study identified obstacles in the ginseng export process, including market downturns, weakened price competitiveness of Korean ginseng, increased market share of competing products like Chinese and Western ginseng, a lack of promotion and marketing, and insufficient development and export of various ginseng products. In response, strategies for overcoming these obstacles were proposed, including diversifying exports, establishing effective production systems, enhancing quality and branding, strengthening promotion and marketing efforts, and developing various ginseng products.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition
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• v.38 no.10
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• pp.1373-1380
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• 2009

To increase the intake of calcium in elementary school children, 20 high calcium dishes (HCD) were developed. The pictures of HCD with the calories, calcium content, and the price per serving were given for the evaluation of HCD to 118 school dietitians. Along with the evaluation, a questionnaire concerning the perception on calcium nutrient and calcium fortified foods (CFF), the use of school milk and CFF, and the need and their endeavor for HCD was administered. Over 90% of subjects were aware of the importance of calcium in school lunch menu and 80% of them recognized the necessity for exploring HCD, though their endeavor remained at a 30% level. HCD that reached the requirement of calcium for the school lunch was 3 and the preference response over 4 (maximum 5) was 2 HCD with better acceptance by younger subjects. 70.3% of subjects were aware of CFF and their response on them were diverse as a positive conception 42%, negative 33% and willing to use 40%, not to use 40%. The dietitians who provided school milk or willing to develop HCD were more positive to use CFF. These results indicate that school milk is the most important calcium source and further pursue for HCD and CFF is needed to achieve the calcium requirement for the elementary school lunch.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.93-110
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• 1990

The basic purpose behind the Korean government's policy toward the Korean deep sea fishing industry is to limit growth of the industry. Therefore, the regulations on the industry are generally restrictive and interventionist. The policy is intended to maintain high domestic fish prices in order to protect the domestic coastal fishing industry. Some regulations have also been introduced to maintain "industrial order." Each fishing vessel must obtain a government permit for operation. The permit specifies the kind of fish it can catch, the area of sea in which it can operate, and the port at which it can unload its catches. The number of permits government issues each year is based on the estimates of the demand increase calculated by government officials, and the government traditionally has been fairly conservative in its estimation, reflecting its concern for fish price stabilization, which actually implies a gradual increase of the prices. There is also a restriction on importing vessels from abroad. This regulation is intended to protect the domestic shipbuilding industry. However, this regulation has resulted in an unusually high average age of Korean fishing vessels, causing fishing costs to rise. These regulations and the inflexible response of the regulators to changing circumstances have resulted in many problems: i) high domestic fish prices, which are, to some extent deliberately, inflated to three or four times the level of international prices, resulting in huge consumer welfare losses; ii) over-exploitation of coastal fish resources; iii) provision of a hospitable environment for inefficient firms to survive, which is especially evident from the fact that, despite the high fish prices in Korea, most of the firms in the industry do not enjoy high profitability. It also must be pointed out that the actual beneficiaries of the high fish prices are the large operators, who are protected from competition and provide most of the fish for domestic consumption, rather than the low-income fishing households and small coastal operators whom the policy was originally designed to help. This study proposes a set of regulatory reforms and policy changes which could Promote competition and equity within the industry and allow firms to reduce costs and increase productivity. Such changes can make the industry more efficient and internationally competitive. Major proposals are, among others: minimization of bureaucratic discretion in issuing fishing permits and maintaining transparency in the governments' decision-making processes; reduction of the government permit specifications and simplification of the operational categories within the industry; and removal of the restrictions on importing foreign fishing vessels.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.99-128
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• 2008

Nearly all Koreans are insured through National Health Insurance(NHI). While NHI coverage is nearly universal, it is not complete. Coverage is largely limited to minimal level of hospital and physician expenses, and copayments are required in each case. As a result, Korea's public insurance system covers roughly 50% of overall individual health expenditures, and the remaining 50% consists of copayments for basic services, spending on services that are either not covered or poorly covered by the public system. In response to these gaps in the public system, 64% of the Korean population has supplemental private health insurance. Expansion of private health insurance raises negative externality issue. Like public financing schemes in other countries, the Korean system imposes cost-sharing on patients as a strategy for controlling utilization. Because most insurance policies reimburse patients for their out-of-pocket payments, supplemental insurance is likely to negate the impact of the policy, raising both total and public sector health spending. So far, most empirical analysis of supplemental health insurance to date has focused on the US Medigap programme. It is found that those with supplements apparently consume more health care. Two reasons for higher health care consumption by those with supplements suggest themselves. One is the moral hazard effect: by eliminating copayments and deductibles, supplements reduce the marginal price of care and induce additional consumption. The other explanation is that supplements are purchased by those who anticipate high health expenditures - adverse effect. The main issue addressed has been the separation of the moral hazard effect from the adverse selection one. The general conclusion is that the evidence on adverse selection based on observable variables is mixed. This article investigates the extent to which private supplementary insurance affect use of health care services by public health insurance enrollees, using Korean administrative data and private supplements related data collected through all relevant private insurance companies. I applied a multivariate two-part model to analyze the effects of various types of supplements on the likelihood and level of public health insurance spending and estimated marginal effects of supplements. Separate models were estimated for inpatients and outpatients in public insurance spending. The first part of the model estimated the likelihood of positive spending using probit regression, and the second part estimated the log of spending for those with positive spending. Use of a detailed information of individuals' public health insurance from administration data and of private insurance status from insurance companies made it possible to control for health status, the types of supplemental insurance owned by theses individuals, and other factors that explain spending variations across supplemental insurance categories in isolating the effects of supplemental insurance. Data from 2004 to 2006 were used, and this study found that private insurance increased the probability of a physician visit by less than 1 percent and a hospital admission by about 1 percent. However, supplemental insurance was not found to be associated with a bigger health care service utilization. Two-part models of health care utilization and expenditures showed that those without supplemental insurance had higher inpatient and outpatient expenditures than those with supplements, even after controlling for observable differences.

• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.692-701
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• 2008

This study was conducted with 150 adults of 20 years or older, all of whom lived in Seoul. The awareness of traditional Hangwa (Korean cookies) was shown to be relatively low, with 2.9 points on average, and the intake of traditional Hangwa for a month was 2.1 times. For the reason that traditional Hangwa couldn't become popular, and the opinion that the reason was because the price is expensive was the highest, at 3.8. The next highest reasons given were because it is difficult to buy, and because it is inconvenient to eat, at 3.0. The traditional Hangwa was shown to enjoy positive awareness as opposed to negative awareness, while the manufacturing sanitation was also recognized to be relatively clean, with 2.6 points assigned to the opinion that it doesn't taste good, and 2.7 points assigned to the opinion that the manufacturing sanitation is unclean. With regard to the excellence of traditional Hangwa, the response that 'our tradition can be handed down' was the most often encountered, with a score of 3.9. The traditional Hangwa was appraised as excellent, with 3.6 points assigned to the opinion 'it suits our body because it is made with our agricultural products' and 3.4% for each opinion 'safe ingredients are used' and 'all ingredients are good for health'. With regard to the level of agreement for the development of functional traditional Hangwa, the positive group was higher than 25.3% of the negative group, with 27.3% for 'agree very much' and 22.0% for 'agree'. When converted into a 5-point scale for the development of functional traditional Hangwa, the group that was positive toward its development was high, with 3.4 points on average. All categories of excellence awareness were correlated with the level of agreement for the development of a functional food product (p<0.001). Consumer awareness toward the addition of traditional Hangwa functionality was generally positive, with 3.3 points or higher on average, and awareness of the aging suppression and diabetes control effects of Hangwa was also high, with 3.5 points. Next were Hangwa for diet, Hangwa for blood pressure control, Hangwa for mineral supple-mentation and vitamin additive-type Hangwa, with 3.4 for each, and Hangwa for health preservation, with 3.3 in order. With regard to the degree of interest toward functional traditional Hangwa for the treatment of diseases, obese patients cited aging suppression, at 3.2, and vitamin additive Hangwa, at 3.0, while Hangwa for dieting was assigned 2.8 points. Patients with high blood pressure, blood circulation, and diabetes were all shown as having a high degree of interest in all items, while evidencing particular interest toward Hangwa for diabetes control and Hangwa for blood pressure control. With regard to intention to purchase while developing functional traditional Hangwa, the group asserting intention to purchase was higher than 60% for all items except for Hangwa for diabetes control (58.7%). The Hangwa for aging suppression was highest, at 68.6%, and shown as having intention to purchase during development in the order of vitamin additive Hangwa at 68.0%, Hangwa for mineral supplementation at 64.6%, each of Hangwa for health preservation and Hangwa for blood pressure control at 62.7%, Hangwa for diet at 62.6% and Hangwa for diabetes control at 58.7%. The considerations during the development of functional traditional Hangwa were in the following order: storage at 4.1 points, taste and level of function at 3.9 points, size at 3.5 points, and packing at 3.4 points.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.31-62
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• 1989

By using deterministic dynamic models, we observe the behavior of the foreign exchange rate of a small open economy with rational expectation formation and different restrictions on the international economic integrations. First, an economy connected to the world by purchasing power parity and uncovered interest parity is studied in the next section. In both sections, financial assets available in the economy are domestic money and bonds. Stocks are added as a financial instrument in the next section, and real capital accumulation is also taken into account. Furthermore, the economy concerned there is fairly autonomous, and not directly governed by either purchasing power parity or uncovered interest parity. The expectation formation used throughout the whole paper is complete perfect foresight, which is the certainty version of rational expectation and free from any forecast errors. It is found that upon monetary expansion the short run depreciation of the foreign exchange rate is a fairly robust result regardless of the degree of the international economic integration, while it is not true for fiscal expansion. The expectation on the long run state significantly affects the short run response of the exchange rate. All of our models postulate that the current account should be balanced eventually. As the result, the short run behavior of the exchange rate is affected by the expectation on the long run balance and may well be a blend of the traditional flow view and modem asset view. The initial overshooting of the exchange rate is easily observed even in the fairly autonomous economy Furthermore, the initial overshooting is not reduced over time, but augmented for some time before it is eventually eliminated. As long as we maintain rational expectaion, introducing time delay in the adjustment of the foreign goods price to the foreign exchange rate does not make much difference.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.15-30
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• 2021

This study was conducted to investigate the utilization and satisfaction of meal-kits according to food-related lifestyle among total 357 adults who had experience in using meal-kits. This study can provide basic data for effective menu composition and directions toward improvement. The participants of the study were classified into 5 groups 'health-type group', 'economic-type group', 'safety-type group', 'tasty-type group' and 'convenience-type group'. The 'tastye-type group' were found to spend more on purchasing meal-kits than other groups with the higher proportion(36.66%) of spending '30,000-50,000'won(p<0.05), which is the highest price category. The important factors that contributed to purchasing a meal-kits were 'taste'(50.98%), and 'economic-type group' showed the highest tendency of considering taste (58.46%). About half(49.02%) of the respondents preferred 'Korean-food' for meal-kits as for the type of food. All groups highly preferred 'meat'(42.58%) as the main ingredient, particularly the 'tasty-type group'(53.33%)(p<0.001). The 'tasty-type group' showed the highest satisfaction on 'convenience of cooking'(4.05), and 'convenience-type group' showed the lowest satisfaction on the 'origin of ingredient'(2.98) among groups (p<0.01). The overall response indicated that most respondents are willing to use meal-kits in the future (97.20%); and 93.28% of respondents would recommend the purchase of meal-kits to others, where 'convenience of cooking/purchase' was the factor contributing most for recommending(67.23%). Taken together, 'taste' was the most important factor for all groups. And 'Convenience of cooking' was the factor contributing to satisfaction most while 'origin of ingredient' contributing the least. It is recommended for the growth of meal-kits industry, to improve the quality of the meal-kits products and develop various menus.