• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.47-60
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• 2023

Purpose - This paper assesses the trade potential and efficiency of Korea and China in the aquatic products trade. Trade efficiency and potential are the main factors that affect the growth of a country's trade. In this study, a time-varying stochastic frontier trade gravity model was constructed to analyze the trade potential and efficiency between Korea and China. By integrating the results of trade theory and empirical analysis, measures and suggestions were proposed to encourage the release of trade potential of fish exports between Korea and China. Design/methodology - In this paper, GDP per capita instead of economic size was chosen as an explanatory variable, and population size and relative distance were selected as explanatory variables to measure trade potential. For trade non-efficiency terms, regional organizations, political factors, and economic factors were mainly considered, and variables such as free trade agreements, political stability, regulatory quality, government efficiency, currency freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, and trade freedom were selected. Panel data for South Korea and 14 aquatic products trading partners (including China) from 2002 to 2020 were used in the empirical analysis. Findings - In the past 19 years, South Korea's export trade potential of aquatic products to China has never been lower than 70%. It was above 90% from 2006 to 2018, and has been at a high level for a long time. This shows that China's aquatic product market has large potential for development. Originality/value - This study examines the effectiveness and potential of South Korea's exports of aquatic items to China in a methodical and comprehensive empirical manner. The evaluation of the export trade potential of South Korea's aquatic goods to China is more precise when the effects of regional organization, political, and economic variables are taken into account in the trade non-efficiency term of the stochastic frontier gravity model. At the same time, we propose to increase the scale of South Korea's aquatic products trade from the perspective of China's demand. This issue of trade studies is underexplored both empirically and in theory, although the issue has long been important to Korean and world trade.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.21-46
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• 1990

This paper, a sequel to Yoo and Lee (1990), attempts to investigate the interindustry determinants of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries, and also to conduct an exploratory analysis on the stability of technical efficiency over time. The hypotheses set forth in this paper are most found in the existing literature on technical efficiency. They are, however, revised and shed a new light upon, whenever possible, to accommodate any Korea-specific conditions. The set of regressors used in the cross-sectional analysis are chosen and the hypotheses are posed in such a way that our result can be made comparable to those of similar studies conducted for the U.S. and Japan by Caves and Barton (1990) and Uekusa and Torii (1987), respectively. It is interesting to observe a certain degree of similarity as well as differentiation between the cross-section evidence on Korea's manufacturing industries and that on the U.S. and Japanese industries. As for the similarities, we can find positive and significant effects on technical efficiency of relative size of production and the extent of specialization in production, and negative and significant effect of the variations in capital-labor ratio within industries. The curvature influence of concentration ratio on technical efficiency is also confirmed in the Korean case. There are differences, too. We cannot find any significant effects of capital vintage, R&D and foreign competition on technical efficiency, all of which were shown to be robust determinants of technical efficiency in the U.S. case. We note, however, that the variables measuring capital vintage effect, R&D and the degree of foreign competition in Korean markets are suspected to suffer from serious measurement errors incurred in data collection and/or conversion of industrial classification system into the KSIC (Korea Standard Industrial Classification) system. Thus, we are reluctant to accept the findings on the effects of these variables as definitive conclusions on Korea's industrial organization. Another finding that interests us is that the cross-industry evidence becomes consistently strong when we use the efficiency estimates based on gross output instead of value added, which provides us with an ex post empirical criterion to choose an output measure between the two in estimating the production frontier. We also conduct exploratory analyses on the stability of the estimates of technical efficiency in Korea's manufacturing industries. Though the method of testing stability employed in this paper is never a complete one, we cannot find strong evidence that our efficiency estimates are stable over time. The outcome is both surprising and disappointing. We can also show that the instability of technical efficiency over time is partly explained by the way we constructed our measures of technical efficiency. To the extent that our efficiency estimates depend on the shape of the empirical distribution of plants in the input-output space, any movements of the production frontier over time are not reflected in the estimates, and possibilities exist of associating a higher level of technical efficiency with a downward movement of the production frontier over time, and so on. Thus, we find that efficiency measures that take into account not only the distributional changes, but also the shifts of the production frontier over time, increase the extent of stability, and are more appropriate for use in a dynamic context. The remaining portion of the instability of technical efficiency over time is not explained satisfactorily in this paper, and future research should address this question.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.151-172
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• 2021

The government's implementation of customer-friendly financial policies, such as lowering commission fees for credit card merchants and lowering the maximum interest rate, put the specialized credit finance companies in a crisis of lowering profitability. In this unfavorable situation, the efficiency study of specialized credit finance companies is meaningful. Accordingly, this study measured the efficiency of 34 specialized credit finance companies through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and meta-frontier analysis. For meta-frontier analysis, specialized credit finance companies were divided into two groups (card companies and non-card companies) by industry or three groups (AA0 and above, AA-, and A+ or below) by credit rating. The results of the analysis will provide general insight into the efficiency of specialized credit finance companies. The results of this study are as follows. First, the average meta-efficiency of card companies was analyzed higher than that of non-card companies. Second, 80% of non-card's decision-making units (DMUs) were inefficient by pure technology rather than by scale. Third, decision-making units (DMUs), which account for 62.5% of the credit card company group and 80% of the 'AA-' credit rating group, are in non-economic areas of scale. Fourth, there was no statistically significant difference in meta-efficiency values (TE and PTE) by industry (card companies, non-card companies) and credit rating (AA0 or higher, AA-, A+ or lower). The contribution of this study will provide strategic initiatives for establishing management strategies to improve inefficiency by measuring the efficiency level of companies under an unfriendly business environment for specialized credit finance companies.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.97-108
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• 2022

This paper examined the impact of financing structure on the innovation efficiency of SMEs by constructing an econometric model using panel data of SMEs listed on the SME board from 2010 to 2020 as the research sample. The innovation efficiency of SMEs was measured by the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), the relationship between financing structure and innovation efficiency of SMEs was examined with the help of the Tobit model, and the corresponding heterogeneity analysis was conducted. Finally, the robustness of the model was tested. It was concluded that the effects of debt and equity financing on the quantitative efficiency of innovation were non-linear and mainly showed an inverted "U" shaped relationship. For innovation quality efficiency, bond financing could positively contribute, while equity financing negatively inhibits. Finally, the corresponding advice was given.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.76-92
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• 2021

The value of personal information is increasing with the digital transformation of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The purpose of this study is to analyze the efficiency of personal information protection efforts of 2,000 private companies. It uses a stochastic frontier approach (SFA), a parametric estimation method that measures the absolute efficiency of protective activities. In particular, the personal information activity index is used as an output variable for efficiency analysis, with the personal information protection budget and number of personnel utilized as input variables. As a result of the analysis, efficiency is found to range from a minimum of 0.466 to a maximum of 0.949, and overall average efficiency is 0.818 (81.8%). The main causes of inefficiency include non-fulfillment of personal information management measures, lack of system for promoting personal information protection education, and non-fulfillment of obligations related to CCTV. Policy support is needed to implement safety measures and perform personal information encryption, especially customized support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.179-193
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• 2006

Technical efficiency of semiforcing watermelon growers is 0.8248 on average, and distributed between 0.6744 and 0.9268. The result showed that semiforcing watermelon growers had by 18% of technical inefficiency and could be assumed that increasing technical efficiency could induce watermelon production more increase. Consequently, if growers' technical efficiency were improved while other environments were constant, watermelon production could be increased. Following the results from the inefficiency effect model, all assumption coefficient such as growers age etc, are significant at 10% level. Estimate of dispersion parameter ${\gamma}$ is 0.89, which confirms those differences between practical output and frontier output were derived from the technical efficiencies among growers. Differences of production system between high and low level growers in production efficiency were showed at side altitude, ventilation and heat-retaining in section of facilities and automation, soil test and calcium application in section of environment management, transplant preparation and duration of pollination in section of crop management and shipment place, sorting degree and management record analysis in section of business management respectively. As a result of analyzing consulting data by using standard diagnosis table of watermelon cultivation under structure which cultivated on semi-forced watermelon growers, gap between high and low level growers was 7.0 points in facility automation section, 7.1 points in environment section, 8.8 points in crop management section and 13.6 points in business management section, respectively, which were the biggest one among them. In case of excluding information-related items from the evaluation index of business management section, changes of business achievement are to occur. Therefore, it is recommended for us to review the standard diagnostic table of watermelon cultivation under structure by dividing evaluation index of management section into management and information.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.331-336
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• 2019

In this study, required properties and optimized procedure conditions for the pitch based soft carbon anode of lithium ion battery was investigated for improving the initial efficiency and rate performance. Each petroleum residue was thermally treated at 360, 370, and $410^{\circ}C$ for 3 hours to synthesis a pitch and the corresponding pitch shows the softening point of 86, 98, and $152^{\circ}C$, respectively. The elemental analysis and thermal characteristics of the pitch were investigated by EA analysis and TGA. It was noted that the low H/C and improved thermal stability were obtained with the high softening point. The obtained pitch was carbonized at $1,200^{\circ}C$ for 1 hour to produce a soft carbon based anode. As a result of investigating the crystal structure by XRD analysis, it was found that the crystallinity of soft carbon increased with increasing the softening point. It was considered that relatively higher boiling components and decreases in the evaporation component resulted the components participation for cyclization during the heat treatment process. The soft carbon based anode with an improved crystallinity shows the enhanced initial efficiency and rate performance. The mechanism of both improvements was also discusssed based on the developed crystal structure of soft carbon based anode materials.

• Plant Biotechnology Reports
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.269-280
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• 2010

Lilium ${\times}$ formolongi was genetically engineered by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation with the plasmid pCrtZW-N8idi-crtEBIY, which contains seven enzyme genes under the regulation of the CaMV 35S promoter. In the transformants, ketocarotenoids were detected in both calli and leaves, which showed a strong orange color. In transgenic calli, the total amount of carotenoids [133.3 ${\mu}g/g$ fresh weight (FW)] was 26.1-fold higher than in wild-type calli. The chlorophyll content and photosynthetic efficiency in transgenic orange plantlets were significantly lowered; however, after several months of subculture, they had turned into plantlets with green leaves that showed significant increases in chlorophyll and photosynthetic efficiency. The total carotenoid contents in leaves of transgenic orange and green plantlets were quantified at 102.9 and 135.2 ${\mu}g/g$ FW, respectively, corresponding to 5.6- and 7.4-fold increases over the levels in the wild-type. Ketocarotenoids such as echinenone, canthaxanthin, 3'-hydroxyechinenone, 3-hydroxyechinenone, and astaxanthin were detected in both transgenic calli and orange leaves. A significant change in the type and composition of ketocarotenoids was observed during the transition from orange transgenic plantlets to green plantlets. Although 3'-hydroxyechinenone, 3-hydroxyechinenone, astaxanthin, and adonirubin were absent, and echinenone and canthaxanthin were present at lower levels, interestingly, the upregulation of carotenoid biosynthesis led to an increase in the total carotenoid concentration (+31.4%) in leaves of the transgenic green plantlets.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.845-855
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• 2022

In response to climate change, the world is continuing efforts to reduce fossil fuels, expand renewable energy, and improve energy efficiency with the goal of achieving carbon neutrality. In particular, R&D is being made on the value chain covering the entire cycle of hydrogen production, storage, transportation, and utilization in order to shift the energy supply system to focus on hydrogen energy. Hydrogen-based energy sources can produce heat and electricity at the same time, so it is possible to utilize heat energy, which can increase overall efficiency. In this study, calculation of the optimal scale for hydrogen-based cogeneration and the composition of heat sources were reviewed. It refers to a method of the optimal heat source size according to the external heat supply and heat storage to be considered. The results of this study can be used as basic data for establishing a hydrogen-based energy supply model in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Statistical Society
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.449-458
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• 2004

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) estimators have been widely used in productivity analysis. The asymptotic distribution of DEA estimator derived by Kneip et al. (2003) is too complicated and abstract for analysts to use in practice, though it should be appreciated in its own right. This paper provides another way to express the limit distribution of the DEA estimator in a tractable way.