• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.339-348
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• 2021

This paper aims to analyze the production efficiency in Korea's ten service sectors using DEA and its determinants utilizing a truncated-Tobit regression model and a censored-Tobit regression model in 2010-2019. This paper found: First, the Korean service sector's production efficiency in general has been significantly low and polarized. Especially, the inefficiency resulted from the scale inefficiency in the 'sewerage waste management industry.' Second, in the determinants analysis, the results show the positive effect of the investment and R&D expenses on technical efficiency, while FDI and lobbying expenses illustrate the negative impact. Moreover, it seems that the larger the industry, the higher the efficiency. Thus, the future Korean government's economic policy for the service sectors requires a mixed and integrated policy of the macroeconomic aspect such as active investment and R&D activities with microeconomic aspect including a convergence of FDI and human capital.

• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.111-127
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• 2011

The aim of this study is to reveal the effects of government and public electronic procurement on the private sector's productivity and technical inefficiency. Three cases are analyzed. The first scenario is that the government just appears as a new consumer to enterprises. Simply participating as a new consumer to enterprises reveals that government does not contribute to the private sector's productivity or improve technical efficiency. The second case is one where the government publicly procures the private sector's service or goods using IT technologies. It is revealed that government contribute to improve the private sector's productivity and reduce inefficiency. The last case is where the government demands business to connect to governments using new IT technologies. The government demands to adopt the IT technology for connection results in improved productivity and efficiencies in the private sectors.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.27-45
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• 1990

Two opposing views prevail regarding the economic impact of rural out-migration on the rural areas of origin. The optimistic neoclassical view argues that rapid rural out-migration is not detrimental to the income and welfare of the rural areas of origin, whereas Lipton (1980) argues the opposite. We developed our own alternative model for rural to urban migration, appropriate for rapidly developing economies such as Korea's. This model, which adopts international trade theories of nontraded goods and Dutch Disease to rural to urban migration issues, argues that rural to urban migration is caused mainly by two factors: first, the unprofitability of farming, and second, the decrease in demand for rural nontraded goods and the increase in demand for urban nontraded goods. The unprofitability of farming is caused by the increase in rural wages, which is induced by increasing urban wages in booming urban manufacturing sectors, and by the fact that the cost increases in farming cannot be shifted to consumers, because farm prices are fixed worldwide and because the income demand elasticity for farm products is very low. The demand for nontraded goods decreases in rural and increases in urban areas because population density and income in urban areas increase sharply, while those in rural areas decrease sharply, due to rapid rural to urban migration. Given that the market structure for nontraded goods-namely, service sectors including educational and health facilities-is mostly in monopolistically competitive, and that the demand for nontraded goods comes only from local sources, the urban service sector enjoys economies of scale, and can thus offer services at cheaper prices and in greater variety, whereas the rural service sector cannot enjoy the advantages offered by scale economies. Our view concerning the economic impact of rural to urban migration on rural areas of origin agrees with Lipton's pessimistic view that rural out-migration is detrimental to the income and welfare of rural areas. However, our reasons for the reduction of rural income are different from those in Lipton's model. Lipton argued that rural income and welfare deteriorate mainly because of a shortage of human capital, younger workers and talent resulting from selective rural out-migration. Instead, we believe that rural income declines, first, because a rapid rural-urban migration creates a further shortage of farm labor supplies and increases rural wages, and thus reduces further the profitability of farming and, second, because a rapid rural-urban migration causes a further decline of the rural service sectors. Empirical tests of our major hypotheses using Korean census data from 1966, 1970, 1975, 1980 and 1985 support our own model much more than the neoclassical or Lipton's models. A kun (county) with a large out-migration had a smaller proportion of younger working aged people in the population, and a smaller proportion of highly educated workers. But the productivity of farm workers, measured in terms of fall crops (rice) purchased by the government per farmer or per hectare of irrigated land, did not decline despite the loss of these youths and of human capital. The kun having had a large out-migration had a larger proportion of the population in the farm sector and a smaller proportion in the service sector. The kun having had a large out-migration also had a lower income measured in terms of the proportion of households receiving welfare payments or the amount of provincial taxes paid per household. The lower incomes of these kuns might explain why the kuns that experienced a large out-migration had difficulty in mechanizing farming. Our policy suggestions based on the tests of the currently prevailing hypotheses are as follows: 1) The main cause of farming difficulties is not a lack of human capital, but the in­crease in production costs due to rural wage increases combined with depressed farm output prices. Therefore, a more effective way of helping farm economies is by increasing farm output prices. However, we are not sure whether an increase in farm output prices is desirable in terms of efficiency. 2) It might be worthwhile to attempt to increase the size of farmland holdings per farm household so that the mechanization of farming can be achieved more easily. 3) A kun with large out-migration suffers a deterioration in income and welfare. Therefore, the government should provide a form of subsidization similar to the adjustment assistance provided for international trade. This assistance should not be related to the level of farm output. Otherwise, there is a possibility that we might encourage farm production which would not be profitable in the absence of subsidies. 4) Government intervention in agricultural research and its dissemination, and large-scale social overhead projects in rural areas, carried out by the Korean government, might be desirable from both efficiency and equity points of view. Government interventions in research are justified because of the problems associated with the appropriation of knowledge, and government actions on large-scale projects are justified because they required collective action.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.22
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• pp.77-106
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• 2003

As globalization of communication is going on and as the media have become increasingly central to the world economy, media policy matters have become the province of world economic organizations like the IMF and the WTO. The WTO service negotiation is focused primarily on the discriminatory and quantitative barriers associated with the trade of audiovisual services. Domestic measures such as subsidization, content regulation including quotas, and licensing requirements and restrictions on foreign ownership and control are at issues here. These measures have been successfully implemented by countries wishing to withstand competition from the American audiovisual industry. The debate about trade in audiovisual services is permeated by the unstated assumption that these programs are pure commodities whose production, distribution, exhibition and in turn, values are solely determined by the market forces. It is therefore presumed that liberalization of trade in audiovisual services will benefit all, serving cultural pluralism and diversity as well as economic efficiency. However, this assumption is not shared by developing countries, the recipients of U.S. television material. They argue audiovisual sector requires a social and cultural approach, since it plays a key role in the preservation of people's identity and social bonds. They claim that it is the each state's right to define its media policy and to implement it through the means it considers fit. These clashing views over the nature of the audiovisual material and the ways in which protect cultural pluralism and diversity do not confine to be the realm of theoretical debate. Each state's interest and motivation to protect its local industry and to have a competitive advantage in the international market is working in this battle. Consolidation with the countries like Australia, Canada, and EU nations, in favour of cultural exemption, seems to be the best policy for us. However, we are not entirely free from the WTO pressures, considering relation to the U. S. This study analyzes Korean Broadcasting Law compared with those of other OECD countries and tries to propose some strategical guidelines facing WTO service negotiation in the area of broadcasting.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.109-153
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• 1992

This paper estimates a translog cost function for the Korea's banking industry and derives various implications on the prospect for the Korean banking structure in the future based on the estimated efficiency indicators for the banking sector. The Korean banking industry is permitted to operate trust business to the full extent and the security business to a limited extent, while it is formally subjected to the strict, specialized banking system. Security underwriting and investment businesses are allowed in a very limited extent only for stocks and bonds of maturity longer than three year and only up to 100 percent of the bank paid-in capital. Until the end of 1991, the ceiling was only up to 25 percent of the total balance of the demand deposits. However, they are prohibited from the security brokerage business. While the in-house integration of security businesses with the traditional business of deposit and commercial lending is restrictively regulated as such, Korean banks can enter the security business by establishing subsidiaries in the industry. This paper, therefore, estimates the efficiency indicators as well as the cost functions, identifying the in-house integrated trust business and security investment business as important banking activities, for various cases where both the production and the intermediation function approaches in modelling the financial intermediaries are separately applied, and the banking businesses of deposit, lending and security investment as one group and the trust businesses as another group are separately and integrally analyzed. The estimation results of the efficiency indicators for various cases are summarized in Table 1 and Table 2. First, security businesses exhibit economies of scale but also economies of scope with traditional banking activities, which implies that in-house integration of the banking and security businesses may not be a nonoptimal banking structure. Therefore, this result further implies that the transformation of Korea's banking system from the current, specialized system to the universal banking system will not impede the improvement of the banking industry's efficiency. Second, the lending businesses turn out to be subjected to diseconomies of scale, while exhibiting unclear evidence for economies of scope. In sum, it implies potential efficiency gain of the continued in-house integration of the lending activity. Third, the continued integration of the trust businesses seems to contribute to improving the efficiency of the banking businesses, since the trust businesses exhibit economies of scope. Fourth, deposit services and fee-based activities, such as foreign exchange and credit card businesses, exhibit economies of scale but constant returns to scope, which implies, the possibility of separating those businesses from other banking and trust activities. The recent trend of the credit card business being operated separately from other banking activities by an independent identity in Korea as well as in the global banking market seems to be consistent with this finding. Then, how can the possibility of separating deposit services from the remaining activities be interpreted? If one insists a strict definition of commercial banking that is confined to deposit and commercial lending activities, separating the deposit service will suggest a resolution or a disappearance of banking, itself. Recently, however, there has been a suggestion that separating banks' deposit and lending activities by allowing a depository institution which specialize in deposit taking and investing deposit fund only in the safest securities such as government securities to administer the deposit activity will alleviate the risk of a bank run. This method, in turn, will help improve the safety of the payment system (Robert E. Litan, What should Banks Do? Washington, D.C., The Brookings Institution, 1987). In this context, the possibility of separating the deposit activity will imply that a new type of depository institution will arise naturally without contradicting the efficiency of the banking businesses, as the size of the banking market grows in the future. Moreover, it is also interesting to see additional evidences confirming this statement that deposit taking and security business are cost complementarity but deposit taking and lending businesses are cost substitute (see Table 2 for cost complementarity relationship in Korea's banking industry). Finally, it has been observed that the Korea's banking industry is lacking in the characteristics of natural monopoly. Therefore, it may not be optimal to encourage the merger and acquisition in the banking industry only for the purpose of improving the efficiency.