• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2024

This paper evaluates explanations for China's growth slowdown. The natural tendency for rapidly growing economies to slow down is a major factor, along with problems bequeathed by unbalanced growth, including a declining ICOR, slowing total factor productivity growth, and rising indebtedness. A number of other mechanisms are of lesser importance: demographics, President Xi's centralization of political power and anti-corruption campaign, and U.S. export controls. Sustaining growth in the longer term will require China to step away from investment, debt and export-fueled growth in favor of a balanced growth model with household consumption playing a larger role. Doing so will require hardening of the budget constraints of regional and local governments and restructuring of the nonperforming debts of property and construction companies.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2018

By the end of 2017, in a world of 7.6 billion people, there were inequalities in healthcare indices both within and between nations, and this gap continues to increase. Therefore, this study aims to understand the current status of regional inequalities in healthcare indices and to find an action plan to tackle regional health inequality through a geo-economic review in Korea. Since 2008, there was great inequality in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by region in not only metropolitan cities but also districts in Korea. While the community health statistics from 2008-2017 show a continuous increase of inequality during the last 10 years in most healthcare indices related to noncommunicable diseases (except for some, like smoking), the inequality has doubled in 254 districts. Furthermore, health inequality intensified as the gap between urban (metropolitan cities) and rural regions (counties) for rates of obesity (self-reported), sufficient walking practices, and healthy lifestyle practices increased from twofold to fivefold. However, regionalism and uneven development are natural consequences of the spatial perspective caused by state-lead developmentalism as Korea has fixed the accumulation strategy as its model for growth with the background of export-led industrialization in the 1960s and heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s, although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea recognizes the legal value of balanced development within the regions by specifying "the balanced development of the state" or "ensuring the balanced development of all regions." In addition, the danger of a 30% decline or extinction of local government nationwide is expected by 2040 as we face not only a decline in general and ageing populations but also the era of the demographic cliff. Thus, the government should continuously operate the "Special Committee on Regional Balanced Development" with a government-wide effort until 2030 to prevent disparities in the health conditions of local residents, which is the responsibility of the nation in terms of strengthening governance. To address the regional inequalities of rural and urban regions, it is necessary to re-adjust the basic subsidy and cost-sharing rates with local governments of current national subsidies based mainly on population scale, financial independence of local government, or distribution of healthcare resources and healthcare indices (showing high inequalities) overall.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.467-485
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• 2011

After Korean War, Korea focused on catching up with the world economy by concentrating on some target industries around the Capital Region and southern coastal cities. Thus, the regional disparity between Capital Region and non-Capital Regions increased drastically. At last, when Korea acquired full-fledged autonomy in 1994 in the Civilian government (1993-1998) and experienced the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, local governments were awakened to the notion of region-oriented development, especially for regional industrial development. The purposes of this paper are to introduce regional industrial development policies since 1998 and to suggest some recommendations in terms of how to adjust regional development for industrial policies in the future. In the introducing phase (Kim administration, 1998-2003), four provincial governments requested national funding to raise regional industries that are of strategic importance. At the same time, the central government recognized the need to nurture regional industries to overcome structural weaknesses. As a result, the Roh administration (2003-2008) gave a birth to a systematizing phase. As the ultimate regional policy objective, the balanced national development has been set and the Special Acts, Special Accounts, Committee, and National Plan have been established. Regional Industrial Promotion Project has been carried out very actively during this period. It had a good start albeit idealistic to a certain extent. Therefore, the current government has changed policy paradigm from balanced growth to regional competitiveness along with global paradigm shifts. In order to enhance regional competitiveness, regional development policies have been pursued in more efficient way. Leading Industry Nurturing Projects (LINPs) on Economic Region level, existed Regional Industrial Promotion Projects (RIPPs) on Province level, and Region Specific Industry Projects (RSIPs) on Local Area level have been implemented. Now, it is appropriate to review regional development policies including industrial policies since 1998 and to adjust them for the future sustainable regional development. Because LINPs and RIPPs will be terminated in next two years, the 2nd stage projects are on planning to reduce the redundancies in two projects. In addition, business support program would be reformed from subsiding technology development to building ecological business system. Finally some policy implications are provided in this paper, which is useful to establish the new regional industrial policies for both central and local government.

• Journal of Korea Planning Association
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.63-74
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• 2019

Korean government has implemented policies to strengthen the competitiveness of small and medium sized cities. However, since it is often difficult to enhance the competitiveness through individual projects, many local governments in metropolitan areas are working together to pursue local growth. On the other hand, small and medium sized cities that are not included in metropolitan areas due to their spatial limitations have difficulties in implementing effective growth policies. Given this background, the purpose of this study is to identify the functional correlation based on urban interactions and develop functional econometric model for the economic growth of small and medium sized cities. This study uses spatial econometrics models and functional weight matrix to identify the effects of functional networks on small and medium sized cities. The results show the effect of functional networks on the growth of small and medium sized cities and provide policy implications for regional spatial planning that addresses effective management of small and medium sized cities.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.16
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• pp.77-97
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• 2003

The Korean government issues the policy that regional government mat change the regional tax rates for economic growth. On the ground that change in regional tax rate incurs the disturbance in regional economy and entails tax competition, regional government does not accept the proposal. The CGE simulation result shows that tax competition reveals the trade-off relation between efficiency, balanced national development, and equity. Thereby, the stance of regional government can be justified by the results. Therefore central government has to grope for some reconcile means that efficiency and equity can be harmonized. The proposal can be justified by the analyses.

• Journal of Agricultural Extension & Community Development
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.799-825
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• 2010

The purpose of the present study is to provide policy implications for successful development of the metropolitan economic zone in Korea followed by in-depth case studies on the US Metropolitan Economic Region. This study looked into diverse experiences of the US mega regions investigating their key strategies, requirements and standards, etc. Urban areas in the US are designated based on CBSA, a standard for statistical area since 1950. The US has a clear standard to define rural and suburban area and is trying to reflect urban structural changes including suburbanization. The US annexation system is relatively simple to operate. Furthermore, the system helps the growth of rural areas by gradually incorporating rural areas into urban areas. We found that action plans of the US mega regions facilitate strategic growth and development for balanced territorial development, incorporating multi-dimensional and comprehensive approaches. We also found that the US mega regions are designated with regard to the local natures. Couple of policy implications were extracted from the US experiences. First, since the construction of mega regions in Korea concerns less on the inter-regional connections with other regions, we need to incorporate diverse standards to divide the regions with respect to the spatial and local characteristics. Second, local governments should collaborate with each other for successful economic development of the metropolitan economic zones. Administrative districts renovation can be a immediate and effective solution to facilitate the collaboration. We recommended to consider consolidating administrative areas to construct successful metropolitan economic zones.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.5 no.3 s.19
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• pp.114-119
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• 2004

A road is an infrastructure that helps boost up growth of local economy, connections among local communities and living conditions. For South Korea the increase in infrastructures like roads now concentrates on specific regions, which causes regional imbalance. also, some areas are faced with the overall weakness of local economy such as decrease in local tax revenues, slowdown in industrial and economic growth of regions, and the low independence of local finances because lack of roads, a basis of local economic growth, make big and smaller business reluctant to invest in localities. In addition, even though the power-centralized age turns to a decentralized age, the preference of development policies by the existing economic size rather than those of nationwide balanced development gets the economic gap of localities deeply-rooted; moreover, disparity of local wealth has a tendency to even differentiate the overall quality of living. The paper intends to analyze relations between road development and local economy focused on road construction, one of requisites to balance national development and accelerate local economy.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.38-52
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• 2024

Digital transformation industry contributes to the improvement of productivity in overall industrial production, the smart green industry for carbon neutrality and sustainable growth is growing as a future industry. The purpose of this paper is to explore the status and role of the industry in the future industry innovation ecosystem through the analysis of the growth drivers and location pattern changes of the smart green industry. The industry is on the rise in both metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, and the growth of the industry can be seen in non-metropolitan and non-urban areas. In particular, due to the smart green industrial complex pilot project, the creation of Gwangju Jeonnam Innovation City, and the promotion of new and renewable energy policies, the emergence of core aggregation areas (HH type) in the coastal areas of Honam and Chungcheongnam-do, and the formation of isolated centers (HL type) in the Gyeongsang region, new and renewable energy production companies are being accumulated in non-metropolitan areas. Therefore, the smart green industry is expected to promote the formation of various specialized spokes in non-urban areas in the future industrial innovation ecosystem that forms a multipolar hub-spoke network structure, where policy factors are the triggers for growth.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.73-91
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• 2009

In this paper, we attempt to study the trend of regional disparity among Chinese provinces and examine the effects of globalization on the disparities adapting panel data approach. The panel data set utilized consists of the annual variables of 29 provinces during 18 years from 1990 to 2007. The trend of inter-provincial disparities in the 1990s with the expansive trend but the trend has started to decrease since 2000. The results of the China case study show clearly that the provincial international trade level and ratio variables perform on regional income disparities remarkably in all cases. It means that the large development of international trade do with increased among provincial disparity. While due to the large area in the provinces, there exist urban-rural disparities within provinces could be one of the main source of regional disparities. Therefore, along with western regions development policy various development policies against small cities are necessary for balanced regional economic growth in China.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.39-72
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• 2013

As a regional development gap between Southwest and Southeast of Jeonnam Province are becoming more serious, it is highly time to come up with measures for the balanced development of the two areas. This paper suggests construction of the Airport and Port Supporting Complex in apparent efforts to reduce the gap between the two areas and facilitate the Southwest economy. The Supporting Complex aims to constitute a triangle industrial cluster which is classified into the following three categories; 1. Traditional competitive industries 2. New growth engine industries 3. Attraction of companies u-turning from abroad such as China etc. To provide one-stop service through set-up of R&D Business Center is the heart of this triangle core. This paper had LQ and Shift&Share Analysis in an attempt to search for competitive industries among the traditional industries in Mokpo-si(city) and Muan-gun(county) of Jeonnam Province. As a result of the analysis, metal manufacturing industry and metal-working process products industry have been found competitive in the two areas. Among the new growth engine industries, this paper suggests precision instruments industry and advanced parts industry for utmost strengths of airport and port while u-turning industries from abroad include higher value-added textile industry and fashion industry. It is expected that all of above-mentioned industries for the triangle industrial cluster will contribute to laying the groundwork to develop regional economy further and create more jobs in the Southwest area of Jeonnam Province.