• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.807-826
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• 2015

Generational contracts are specified into public pensions based on generational solidarity. The Korean National Pension has been reformed with a focus on generational equity with a narrow meaning related to contribution rate and benefit level. As a result, the Korean National Pension has only emphasized generational equity and not contributed to generational solidarity. We investigate changes in the content of the generational contract and propose to reconstruct generational contract to contribute to solidarity with a more comprehensive perspective. A new social contract by reformed pension system should not concentrate on narrowed generational equity. It should be reconstructed in the direction of enhancing efficacy and the stability of generational solidarity with an emphasis on social sustainability. Investment into the next generation would be one of many policy measures to decrease conflicts around intergenerational redistribution and improve the financial stability of the public pension by creating population structure and labor market changes.

• 한국노년학
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.563-578
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• 2009

Public pension system of western welfare states has been maintained by transfers of public resources between working-age population and old-age population. But population aging cause the problem of fiscal burden on pension financing, so cutback on public spending for the elderly has been on the issue at public agenda. The argument on public spending for the elderly is more aggressively proceeded in the United States than any other welfare states. The argument is concerned with the problems of generation and is going under the rhetoric name of 'Generational Equity' which contends unequal distribution of social resources such as federal budget within generations. This article analyzes the background of 'Generational Equity' perspective and the reason why that argument is actively going forward in the U. S. and political-economy context of that argument. Generational Equity perspective contends that the elderly are getting more benefits and high spending on the elderly has contributing to the rising poverty rate of children. But there are lots of objection to this perspective on the ground that the perspective has weak positive evidences. The reason that 'Generational Equity' perspective has the power only in the U. S. but other welfare states is mainly due to that pluralistic political regime and selective welfare system. This research presents that political-economy meaning of 'Generational Equity' perspective is related to the political regime and welfare system of the society itself. And this research has the implication that our society having a selective welfare system would take a risk of encountering 'Generational Equity' social debate in the near future.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.31-65
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• 2012

We study the sustainability of the current fiscal policy of Korea, and the effects of the social welfare policy expansion, which has been recently discussed among the political circles, on the government budget and the generational equity, using generational accounting. We follow the generational accounting approach, considering the fact that most of the social welfare policies are the entitlement programs, which imposes the limitation of the policy maker's discretion to control the cost of their provision. The social welfare expenditure will change due to the change in the policy environments of the future, such as population aging. Therefore, we need to take into account the government cash flow of the future as well as of the present to investigate its effects on the fiscal sustainability, which implies that the national debt or the budget balance is not a proper index for the investigation. Our findings are as follows. The current fiscal policies are not sustainable, and the long-term budgetary imbalance is shown very serious. The required tax adjustment, which is defined as the percentage change of tax burden required to attain the long-term budgetary balance, is very large. Unless the level of the government expenditure is properly controlled, the tax burden and the social contribution level will rise to the untolerable level. Moreover, the expansion of the social welfare policies, which has been discussed among the political circles, will substantially increase the fiscal burden of the future generations. Even though the provision of the free lunch to the primary and the secondary school students, the free child care, and the discounted college tuition do not increase the fiscal burden much, because their magnitude at present is not large and will decrease due to the decrease in the number of the newborns and the students resulting from the fall in the fertility rate, that of the free health care service will increase tax burden of the future generations very much, because the magnitude of the government expenditure needed at present is very large and the population aging will further increase the magnitude of the health care expenditure. The findings indicate that the structural reforms, to prevent the explosive increase in the social welfare expenditure in the future, are necessary before the implementation of the welfare policy expansion. In particular, the cost control of the social transfers to the elderly needs to be made, because the speed of the population aging of Korea is among the highest in the world. The findings also indicate that the budget balance or the national debt can cause the fiscal illusion, which makes the Korean government budget look sound, even though the fiscal policy will rapidly increase the social welfare expenditure in the future, as the population ages. The generational accounting, which takes into account the cash flow of the future as well as of the present, unlike the budgetary balance and the national debt, which shows the results of the government financial activities of the past and the present, is a useful method to overcome the fiscal illusion.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2010

A view of cultural heritage as a form of capital considers the long term, dynamic, evolutionary, inter-temporal and inter-generational aspects of cultural heritage. The principles of sustainability provide a basis on the broader issue of culture in economic development. They might be capable of specifying a pattern of development that is "culturally sustainable" in the same way as somewhat similar set of criteria derived for the natural world, the criteria for defining ecologically and environmentally sustainable development. Thus we might accept the principles of material and non-material advancement, intergenerational and intra-generational equity, the maintenance of cultural diversity, the precautionary principle, and the recognition of system interdependence as benchmarks in assessing a cultural development process.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.46
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• pp.290-318
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• 2001

In 1981, Chile has fundamentally reformed the public pension system from the pay-as-you-go system (PAYGs) to the full funding defined contribution system managed by the private funding companies. The Chilean privatization reform influenced not only the neighbor South American countries but also the advanced countries. The United Kingdom contracted out the state earning related pension system. Australia and Sweden recently introduced the private investment accounts system. And now the hot debates on the privatization of the social security pension is going on in the United States of America. This wind of privatizing the public pension system is being backed up by the New Liberalism, the nowadays' strongest ideology. Besides, the theoretical and idealogical debate between the World Bank and the ILO/ISSA was happened in the middle of 1990s. The World Bank, the supporter of the international financial capital, insisted the introducing of the full funding individual accounts system and the abolition of the existing PAYGs. The ILO/ISSA apposed the World Bank's policies and advocated the moderate reform of the PAYGs. In this paper, I reviewed the Chilean reform, the World Bank's report and the opposing argument of the ILO/ISSA against it, and analysed the core issues of the two sides. Also, I tried to present the suggestions to the Korean public pension systems. Through the discussing the debate, we made certain of the importance of the basic issues in the social security system like equity vs. adequacy, inter-generational redistribution vs. intra-generational redistribution and welfare vs. economy, once again.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.289-322
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• 2001

This paper introduces the environmental economic studies in Korea, focused especially on the environmental regulation policy and valuation of environmental resources in Korea. It can be seen from this survey that the Korean environmental economists have had most of their interests in socially hot issues such as the evaluation and alternatives of the existing environmental policy instruments, and the impacts of both the environmental regulation and greenhouse gas reduction policies, as well as economic valuation of environmental assets including air, water, and ecosystem. We need more intensive research on issues of the evaluation of individual public investment, enforcement, transaction costs and income distribution and inter-generational equity. More attention should also be paid to the valuation methods and environmental data.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.51
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• pp.5-28
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• 2002

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issues and the characteristics of the recent social security pension debate in the United States. For the purpose the transforming process from the funded system to the pay-as-you-go system in the 1930s, three alternatives of social security reform proposed by the Social Security Administration in 1996, and the other various alternatives proposed by the politicians, the business leaders and the scholars were analysed. While the alternatives were compared, the critical issues could be identified. The core issues were as follows. First, the individual accounts should be newly made or not? Second, who is the main administrator, government or private investment companies? Third, what is important, the inter-generational and the vertical income redistribution effect or the individual equity in social security pension system? Besides, the different positions of the social forces were also examined. The supporters of privatizing the social security pension, supporters of IA and PSA, prefer the value of equity, the effect of promoting savings, the private management of the social security funds, and the investment of the funds to the private capital markets. The supporters of pay-as-you-go system, supporters of MB, prefer the inter-generational and the vertical income redistribution effect of social security pension, and were convinced that fundamental changes of the systems are not necessary, and the insolvency problem could be overcome through a few reform, for example, increasing the rate and decreasing the benefits.