• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.127-148
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• 1990

A Milgrom-Roberts style signalling model of limit pricing is developed to analyze the possibility and the scope of limit pricing in general, noncooperative oligopolies. The model contains multiple incumbent firms facing a potential entrant and assumes an information asymmetry between incombents and the potential entrant about the market demand. There are two periods in the model. In period 1, n incumbent firms simultaneously and noncooperatively choose quantities. At the end of period 1, the potential entrant observes the market price and makes an entry decision. In period 2, depending on the entry decision of the entrant, n' or (n+1) firms choose quantities again before the game terminates. Since the choice of incumbent firms in period 1 depends on their information about demand, the market price in period 1 conveys information about the market demand. Thus, there is a systematic link between the market price and the profitability of entry. Using Bayes-Nash equilibrium as the solution concept, we find that there exist some demand conditions under which incumbent firms will limit price. In symmetric equilibria, incumbent firms each produce an output that is greater than the Cournot output and induce a price that is below the Cournot price. In doing so, each incumbent firm refrains from maximizing short-run profit and supplies a public good that is entry deterrence. The reason that entry is deterred by such a reduced price is that it conveys information about the demand of the industry that is unfavorable to the entrant. This establishes the possibility of limit pricing by noncooperative oligopolists in a setting that is fully rational, and also generalizes the result of Milgrom and Roberts to general oligopolies, confirming Bain's intuition. Limit pricing by incumbents explained above can be interpreted as a form of credible collusion in which each firm voluntarily deviates from myopic optimization in order to deter entry using their superior information. This type of implicit collusion differs from Folk-theorem type collusions in many ways and suggests that a collusion can be a credible one even in finite games as long as there is information asymmetry. Another important result is that as the number of incumbent firms approaches infinity, or as the industry approaches a competitive one, the probability that limit pricing occurs converges to zero and the probability of entry converges to that under complete information. This limit result confirms the intuition that as the number of agents sharing the same private information increases, the value of the private information decreases, and the probability that the information gets revealed increases. This limit result also supports the conventional belief that there is no entry problem in a competitive market. Considering the fact that limit pricing is generally believed to occur at an early stage of an industry and the fact that many industries in Korea are oligopolies in their infant stages, the theoretical results of this paper suggest that we should pay attention to the possibility of implicit collusion by incumbent firms aimed at deterring new entry using superior information. The long-term loss to the Korean economy from limit pricing can be very large if the industry in question is a part of the world market and the domestic potential entrant whose entry is deterred could .have developed into a competitor in the world market. In this case, the long-term loss to the Korean economy should include the lost opportunity in the world market in addition to the domestic long-run welfare loss.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.31-57
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• 1991

Korean firms of all sizes, from virtually every industry, have used and are using the term "excessive competition" to describe the state of their industry and to call for government interventions. Moreover, the Korean government has frequently responded to such calls in various ways favorable to the firms, such as controlling entry, curbing capacity investments, or allowing collusion. Despite such interventions' impact on the overall efficiency on the Korean economy as well as on the wealth distribution among diverse groups of economic agents, the term "excessive competition", the basis for the interventions, has so far escaped rigorous scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to clarify the notion of "excessive competition" and "over-investment" which usually accompanies "excessive competition", and to examine the circumstances under which they might occur. We first survey the cases where the terms are most widely used and proceed to examine those cases to determine if competition is indeed excessive, and if so, what causes "excessive competition". Our main concern deals with the case in which the firms must make investment decisions that involve large sunk costs while facing uncertain demand. In order to analyze this case, we developed a two period model of capacity precommitment and the ensuing competition. In the first period, oligopolistic firms make capacity investments that are irreversible. Demand is uncertain in period 1 and only the distribution is known. Thus, firms must make investment decisions under uncertainty. In the second period, demand is realized, and the firms compete with quantity under realized demand and capacity constraints. In the above setting, we find that there is "no over-investment," en ante, and there is "no excessive competition," ex post. As measured by the information available in period 1, expected return from investment of a firm is non-negative, overall industry capacity does not exceed the socially optimal level, and competition in the second period yields an outcome that gives each operating firm a non-negative second period profit. Thus, neither "excessive competition" nor "over-investment" is possible. This result will generally hold true if there is no externality and if the industry is not a natural monopoly. We also extend this result by examining a model in which the government is an active participant in the game with a well defined preference. Analysis of this model shows that over-investment arises if the government cannot credibly precommit itself to non-intervention when ex post idle capacity occurs, due to socio-political reasons. Firms invest in capacities that exceed socially optimal levels in this case because they correctly expect that the government will find it optimal for itself to intervene once over-investment and ensuing financial problems for the firms occur. Such planned over-investment and ensuing government intervention are the generic problems under the current system. These problems are expected to be repeated in many industries in years to come, causing a significant loss of welfare in the long run. As a remedy to this problem, we recommend a non-intervention policy by the government which creates and utilizes uncertainty. Based upon an argument which is essentially the same as that of Kreps and Wilson in the context of a chain-store game, we show that maintaining a consistent non-intervention policy will deter a planned over-investment by firms in the long run. We believe that the results obtained in this paper has a direct bearing on the public policies relating to many industries including the petrochemical industry that is currently in the center of heated debates.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.165-176
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the IT resources on the work efficiency and corporate performance in Mobile Smart-Work Environment with IT convergence Technology by applying the Resource-Based View. The study has an academic meaning by empirically analyzing the effects of factors identified based on the existing study on the IT resources in Mobile Smart-Work, and practical implications to identify how the significance of the Mobile Smart-Work used as a platform of variety industries in manufacturing, logistics, service, distribution, finance, public institutions, and so on positively affects improvement of corporate efficiency and performance. The results showed that IT Infrastructure and IT skills in the Mobile Smart-work environment were found to bring positive effects on individual work efficiency, and IT skills had positive influence on team work efficiency. Also, we confirmed the individual and team work efficiency positively affect financial and market performance of business firms. Finally, we expect that business firm equipped with IT resources in the Mobile Smart-Work environment with IT convergence Technology. It can improve this work efficiency and the performance, which leads to strengthening the core competency.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1109-1133
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• 2013

In an effort to discover new technologies and to forecast social changes of technologies, a number of technology life-cycle models have been developed and employed. The hype cycle, a graphical tool developed by a consulting firm, Gartner, is one of the most widely used models for the purpose and it is recognised as a practical one. However, more research is needed on theoretical frames, relations and empirical practices of the model. In this study, hype cycle comparisons in Korean and global search websites were performed by means of web-search traffic which is proposed as an empirical measurement of public expectation, analysed in a specific product or country in previous researches. First, search traffic and market share for new cars were compared in Korea and the U.S. with a view to identifying differences between the hype cycles in the two countries about the same product. The results show the similarity between the two countries with the statistical significance. Next, comparative analysis between search traffic and supply rate for several products in Korea was conducted to check out their patterns. According to the analysis, all the products seem to be at the "Peak of inflated expectations" in the hype cycles and they are similar to one another in the hype cycle. This study is of significance in aspects of expanding the scope of hype cycle analysis with web-search traffic because it introduced domestic web-search traffic analysis from Naver to analyse consumers' expectations in Korea by comparison with that from Google in other countries. In addition, this research can help to explain social phenomina more persuasively with search traffic and to give scientific objectivity to the hype cycle model. Furthermore, it can contribute to developing strategies of companies, such as marketing strategy.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.8745-8752
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• 2015

Since many accidents have occurred in Korea in these days, many people have lost their health and have been damaged. The damages caused by fires which occur to many buildings where many people always reside takes a substantial share of the total damages. And since the proportions of the domestic fire protection designing/supervising industries are relatively much disregarded compared to other kinds of work, it is in the situation that there are many cases of serious damages because the fire protection equipment didn't exert the proper functions on fire after a building is constructed since the supervision against the poor construction along with the inadequate design. In order to improve such situations, in case of the design industry, the criteria on registration and workforce placement, the scope of operation, the design documents required when requesting the agreement to the construction permits, the responsibilities and authorities about the jobs of the fire protection facility designers must be improved and, in case of supervising industry, the registration criteria, the operation scope and the kinds, methods, targets and criteria of supervision, the criteria on the additional placement of assistant supervisors, the contents and scope of work must be improved, the PQ system and Public Supervision System must be reviewed and the systems for preventing any poor supervision must be improved in order to pursue the security of the people and their properties at the same level as the other kinds of work by preparing for the firm position and foundation of the fire protection design and supervision.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.317-340
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• 2013

The modern society has undergone the fast change of the family structure and labor market. Particularly, the compatibility of work and family life became the era's agenda while the labor force participation rate of the women increased. However, the family-friendly organizational culture was not created and the job engagement of the married female workers was decreased. The married female workers complained of suffering due to the work and family conflict. This research was conducted to study a relationship between family-friendly organizational culture and job engagement of married female social workers, and secondly to investigate if family conflict affect the relationship. From the results of the study, it was known that family-friendly organizational culture has effect on the job engagement, and work and family conflict play an intermediary role between the organizational culture and job engagement. Therefore, it can be explained that family-friendly organizational culture enhances the job engagement of married female social workers, and the culture would be a good measure of the compatibility of work and family life. Based on the study, it is suggested that public relation and education need to be preceded for the spread of family-friendly organizational culture by national initiated programs. Secondly, in terms of welfare organization, related regulations and guidelines need to be prepared, and thirdly, in the view of individual respect, members of family should have their own rights to put forth an opinion grandly with firm faith of the compatibility of work and family life.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.335-348
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• 2014

This study investigates the technical level and industrial structure for the case of the Gazelle industry in Chungnam Province. As a results of the empirical study, the Gazelle industry of Chungnam Province shows a competitive position in terms of scale and growth capacity, which. in turn, provides income and tax collection effects due to the high level of industrial efficiency. Among the Gazelle industry of Chungnam Province, low-level technology industry, compared to high and middle-level technology industries, accelerates higher level of agglomeration and industrial growth, which provides a rapid change of industrial structure of the province. Theses research results imply that research and development investment in the Gazelle industry is essential and industrial development strategy should be conducted via step-by-step with business scale quotient (BQ) and industrial growth rate (IG). Meanwhile, there should be a serious policy review whether low-level technology industry is better off for the province compared to high and middle-level technology industries. This study expects that regional industrial policy applying the concept of Gazelle industry can accelerate regional development since the Gazelle industry contributes to the high level of income growth and employment creation.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.21-33
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• 2013

This study analyzes the effects of diversification on business results and enterprise values of KOSDAQ-listed venture companies to inquire into the effective diversification strategies of venture companies after an initial public offering (IPO). In particular, this study used the Berry-Herfindahl index as a proxy variable regarding the level of diversification of venture companies, and categorized the diversification methods into M&As, strategic partnerships and establishment of subsidiaries to analyze the effects of the mutual interaction among such methods. The following is a summary of the results of the analysis. First, diversification did not have any statistically significant effects on business growth. However, it was found that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between diversification and the profitability of the company. Second, although no statistical significance was found between enterprise values measured based on diversification and market value, a U-shaped relationship or positive relationship was found. Third, M&As were found to moderate the relationship between diversification and business results and enterprise values. Fourth, strategic relationship and establishment of subsidiaries was found to moderate the relationship between diversification and the profit results of the company. Based on the above findings, this study discovered the practical implications regarding the diversification of venture companies after listing on the KOSDAQ.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.87-114
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• 2008

The cultured tuna production which has suddenly expanded at the short time and the demand for it attract attention. Farming mode, distribution transactions, change of the market (domestic and international) and the price trend are reviewed from the Japan's position which is the biggest consuming country. This paper tries to describe the current status of the food system related to the cultured tuna. Japanese government began the development of the tuna culture technology in 1970. It was by the Fisheries Agency's project. Kinki University which is the large scale private university in Japan participated in the project. After that, 32 years have passed. Kinki University established the full farming of the bluefin tuna in August, 2002. On the other hand, in 1974, one Japanese private enterprise began its tuna farming business in Canada. Kinki University gave this company technical cooperation. Also, in the early stages of the 90s, as for the policy of the overseas fishery cooperation foundation, it supported the tuna farming business in Australia. It is very clear to understand that the long-term technological-development has supported the take-off scene of the tuna culture business not only in foreign countries but also in Japan. The total shipment scale of the cultured tuna expanded very much within about 10 recent years. However, the decrease of the wild tuna catch, the reinforcement of the fisheries regulation and the tuna body to dwarf are remarkable now. Under the condition as the mentioned above, Japan's tuna consumption, especially, in the market at the fatty meat of tuna of the cultured tuna is building up firm status. At present, the Mediterranean Sea coastal countries, Australia, Mexico and Japan have the tuna farming sites. Australia farms the southern bluefin tuna. The others do the bluefin tuna. About for 3 years, Japan farms the juvenile of the tuna. The global production areas are as follows. 8 coastal countries of the Mediterranean Sea; 18,000 tons (61 % of the cultured tuna quantity in foreign countries), Mexico; 4,500 ton (15%), Australia; 7,000 tons (24%). In 2003, Japan has 32 managements and 39 offices for tuna farming. In Japan, Kyushu and Okinawa district, the share shows itself as 80 % of the domestic production quantity. Especially, the share of Amami-oshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture exceeds 60 %. Therefore, this island has the maximum production scale of Japan. The amount of supply of BT and SBT was 56,000 tons in 2004. In Abroad, the tuna farming business forms a fixed connection between the importer and the wholesaler which have their office in Japan. In the field of the capital composition, the payment in advance, transaction and the way of settlement, each maintains their fixed relation. The market conditions of the cultured tuna are supported by "the decline of price level" and "the expansion of the general public consumption segment". These lead a team merchandising, and it is supported by the fixed business connection of each. This makes the profit of each business which are on the cultured tuna distribution. However, they have competition on the power balance among them.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.239-253
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• 2008

This paper aims to explore the viability of a rural-industrial complex neighbouring in the metropolitan area and suggest policy implications for the restructuring of the rural industrial complex. In particular, the paper focuses on the location and management practices of the firms operating in the industrial complex. Research shows that the key elements of the viability of the rural industrial complex in Koryung-Gun are the geographical and relational proximities to the metropolitan city of Daegu and the decentralization of urban industries towards rural areas neighbouring in the large city as a result of the deterioration of location conditions in the large city. It is revealed that the major pull factors of location are 'availability of cheap industrial sites', 'agglomeration in a specialized industry' and 'proximity to major customers and suppliers' rather than 'availability of labour pool'. However, it shows that 'weak university-industry linkages' and 'insufficiency of cooperation culture' are the major limitations to attracting firms. In the context of pub1ic policy, the author argues that the restructuring of the rural industrial complex should be sought to promote social infrastructures centered on networks and learning rather than firm centered financial and tax incentives.