• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.23-44
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• 2022

Purpose - Recent issues such as vessel enlargement, strengthening of environmental regulations, and port smartization are expected to increase costs and intensify competition in the port industry. In the new normal era, when external growth has reached its limit, the efficient operation of ports is becoming indispensable for achieving sustainable growth. This study aims to identify the determinants of inefficiency by examining the cost structure and efficiency of container terminals in Korea and furthermore propose the political implications to derive the maximization of efficiency. Design/methodology - This study estimates the cost function of container terminal operators and identifies the efficiency of container terminals using stochastic cost frontier (SCF) in the first stage. In the second step, the SCF results are compared with the data envelopment analysis (DEA). Last, this paper proposes efficiency determinants on container terminal operation to establish appropriate strategies. Out of the 29 container terminal operators in South Korea, 13 operators participated in the survey. The translog cost function was estimated utilizing a total of 116 observations collected over the 2007-2017 period. Findings - Empirical analysis shows that economies of scale exist in Korea's container ports, which provides a rationale for the government's policy to establish the global terminal operator by integrating small terminal operators to enhance competitiveness. In addition, as a result of the determinants analysis, container throughput, weight of direct employment costs, and labour cost share have positive effects on improving cost efficiency, while inefficiency increases as the length of quay increases. More specifically, cost efficiency improves as the proportion of direct employment costs to outsourcing service costs increases. Originality/value - This study contributes to analyzing the inefficiency factors of container terminals through efficiency analysis with respect to a cost function. In addition, this study proposes the practical and political implications, such as establishing a long-term manpower pool, the application of the hybrid liner terminal system, and the construction of a statistical data system, to improve the cost inefficiency of terminal operators.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.157-157
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• 1987

Hydro-electric power generation from multi-purpose dams has been playing important roles in the electric power supply network in Korea. Although the total share of hydro power in national electricity supply now becomes very small, the peak-shaving and frequency control capability of hydro power helps the power company enormously in maintaining the quality of power. But since the company that builds and operates the multi-purpose dams in Korea has to sell all the electricity produced to the monopolistic utility, there have been various problems in justifying the investment, designing pricing mechanism, and controlling operations of the power plants. In addition, economic evaluation of the hydro power has been distorted by a variety of reasons and hence it has been very difficult to encourage effective development and utilization of national water resources. To make the problem worse, both parties are public companies with X-inefficiency problems. Thus, changing environment requires to reengineer the system that governs hydro power generation. We address the problems of Korean hydro-electric power generation system in four areas: the investment justification process, the operations decison right of the hydro power plants, the pricing of the purchased-power, and the negotiation of contract revision. Then we propose improvement directions of new hydro-electric power system in view of static and dynamic efficiency, X-inefficiency and equity.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.157-173
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• 1995

Hydro-electric power generation from multi-purpose dams has been playing important roles in the electric power supply network in Korea. Although the total share of hydro power in national electricity supply now becomes very small, the peak-shaving and frequency control capability of hydro power helps the power company enormously in maintaining the quality of power. But since the company that builds and operates the multi-purpose dams in Korea has to sell all the electricity produced to the monopolistic utility, there have been various problems in justifying the investment, designing pricing mechanism, and controlling operations of the power plants. In addition, economic evaluation of the hydro power has been distorted by a variety of reasons and hence it has been very difficult to encourage effective development and utilization of national water resources. To make the problem worse, both parties are public companies with X-inefficiency problems. Thus, changing environment requires to reengineer the system that governs hydro power generation. We address the problems of Korean hydro-electric power generation system in four areas: the investment justification process, the operations decison right of the hydro power plants, the pricing of the purchased-power, and the negotiation of contract revision. Then we propose improvement directions of new hydro-electric power system in view of static and dynamic efficiency, X-inefficiency and equity.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.25-50
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• 2017

Whereas a large variety of previous studies show mixed results regarding the relationship between public investment and economic outcome, several studies have been conducted on related issues in Korea. The present study deals with the effect of public investment in Korea on economic growth and productivity. Using administrative data, it exploits three different methodologies: the total factor productivity approach, production function approach, and stochastic frontier production function approach. The results of this study show that public investment has a statistically significant effect on economic growth. However, it contributes little to enhance productivity. It is explained that there exists inefficiency of production in the Korean economy. These findings indicate that public investment has played a central role in the direct input factor and not in indirect role in Korea. Thus, it is necessary for public investment policies to concentrate on enhancing the efficiency of the Korean economy.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.31-53
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• 2015

According to the macroeconomic allocation efficiency measure, particularly based on the methodology of Hsieh and Klenow (2009), Korea's allocation efficiency in the manufacturing industry deteriorated in the 2000s compared to that in the 1990s. This study compares the potential TFP gain when resource allocation is removed, an indicator of allocation inefficiency according to Hsieh and Klenow (2009), and the productivity dispersion in the Korean manufacturing industry. It finds that the TFP gain may be better explained by TFP dispersions rather than proxies related to factors of distortion. The findings imply that we should investigate the sources of TFP dispersion rather than the sources of distortion to explain increases in the TFP gain (or TFP loss), which is considered as allocation inefficiency in the literature.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.33-55
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• 2011

Market concentration in the Korean banking industry has markedly increased since the financial crisis of 1997-1998 because of M&As, P&As, and consolidation of banks. With this change, there has been a growing concern over market power in the Korean banking sector. We examine the effects of market concentration on bank efficiency and competition for the period of 1992-2006. Three different indicators of bank inefficiency are used in this study, including X-inefficiency that is derived from the directional technology distance function. The level of competition is measured by both the H-statistic of the Panzar-Rosse model and the level of the net interest margin and its standard deviation. Empirical results indicate that market concentration has not improved bank efficiency through scale economies or scope economies. Instead, recent mergers, acquisitions and consolidation of banks resulted in an increase in inefficiency measured by the three different indicators: X-inefficiency, labor inefficiency and asset inefficiency. While an increase in market share of individual banks improved bank efficiency, an increase in the overall market concentration ratio resulted in lower efficiency. Our study also finds that the Korean banking sector has been monopolistically competitive throughout the sample period except for the crisis period according to the H-statistic. Although an increase in market concentration ratio has not changed the overall level of bank competition, it has a positive significant effect on the level of the average interest margin.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.91-112
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• 2013

This article aims at revealing the dynamic relationships between the energy R&D investment and economic growth in Korea. To achieve this goal, we reviewed the effects of energy R&D investments and tried to make the holistic interconnections for describing the feedback loops between energy R&D and economic system. Energy R&D investments develop the renewable energy, energy efficiency and $CO_2$ emission reductions technologies for accomplishing the national strategic targets. The rapid obsolescence of technologies makes the inefficiency and negative effects in governmental energy R&D investments.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2018

Purpose - It is important to figure out the relationship between tourism carbon emissions and tourism economics for a healthy tourism development. Research design, data, and methodology - Data of this study are collected from 27 provinces (cities) of China. Tourist consumption stripping coefficient is used to calculate tourism carbon emissions. SBM-Undesirable model is used to measure the efficiency of tourism economics under the constraint of tourism carbon emissions. Results - The results show that: during the year of 2005-2015, there are obvious differences in totals and intensities of tourism carbon emissions among 27 provinces and cities which can be divided into three areas. There is a high possibility of underestimating the actual efficiency of tourism economics by leaving tourism carbon emissions out of account, and a high inefficiency caused by tourism carbon emissions will lead a low efficiency of tourism economics. Conclusions - The development of tourism should give consideration to both economic and environmental benefits, and reduce the inefficiency caused by tourism carbon emissions to improve efficiency of tourism economics by improving the level of technical efficiency and promoting technological progress.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.159-171
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• 2013

This paper aims to analyse the relative efficiency of logistics facilities and suggest the policy alternatives for exploring and activating them. This study also divides the logistics facilities into airport terminals, logistics complexes, container terminals, and trucking freight terminals. For this purpose, the CCR-DEA as well as the BCC-DEA techniques are employed to show which part explains the primary cause of inefficiencies of each DMU(Decision Making Unit). The empirical results indicate that the efficiency of logistics complex is the lowest of all, while freight trucking terminal has the highest efficiency. This study also reveals that operation inefficiency is greater than scale inefficiency in most of DMUs, showing that much more effort be done for alleviating the cost resulting from irrational management.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.349-355
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to provide basic information on how to make better policies that improves efficiencies and to derive policy directions using DEA (data envelopment analysis) model. Through this paper, we can identify whether or not the railroad service has an excellent performance, if there are any structural problems, in which sector it is experiencing a degree of inefficiency, and, therefore, how to set up a realistic target to improve efficiency of railroad transportation. According to the result, we need to introduce a better resource efficient economic strategy to reduce the rail line extension and the number of passenger cars for better efficiency from a public interest perspective, while to widen headways and/or reduce the rail line extension from an economic point of view.