• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.917-929
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• 2021

This study highlights the importance of remittance, the factors which affect the percentage of income remitted, and the investment options available to reduce remittance. For the year 2019, the remittances from Oman totaled $9.1 billion. Oman was among the top remitters with remittance to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 11.9%. A survey was conducted on 300 resident expats in Oman. The descriptive analysis shows that the maximum remittance percentage is between 21%-40% of income. The multinomial logistic regression results show that outward remittance depends on gender, age, occupation, number of dependent in Oman, and the number of dependent in the home country. Regarding investment, the most preferred investment option is business, followed by real estate and financial services. Age and education are found to affect investment options. This paper tries to fill the literature gap, especially for the case of Oman, by exploring what determines the level of remittance and the preferred choices for retaining funds. This study adds to the existing literature, as no previous study is available regarding how personal factors can influence the level of remittance and investment in a small oil-exporting developing country like Oman. The study will be helpful to policymakers and academicians in devising policies to retain and invest the outwards remittances in Oman.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.89-101
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• 2022

International remittances play a crucial role in the economic management of each country, especially in developing countries. Its functions are diverse, including procurement of foreign currency, serving as a cushion for the balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves by reducing the adverse external shocks, driving economic growth, easing the gap between the rich and the poor, and maintaining macroeconomic stability. However, previous studies on remittances have mainly focused on macro-and micro-economic aspects to analyze the determinants. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the determinants of remittances in 122 countries over the past 25 years from macroeconomic and educational aspects as well as institutional qualities. In addition, given the fact that almost all of the world's top 10 recipient countries in terms of GDP and total remittance size are developing countries, developed and developing countries are separated and analyzed for comparison, assuming that there may be a difference between the two groups. Results show that the coefficients of developed and developing countries are different in four areas: Control of Corruption (CC), Rule of Law (RL), Voice and Accountability (VA), and Regulatory Quality (RQ) among the six institutional variables of interest in this study. These results implicate that even the same institutions and policies should be applied and implemented differently depending on the circumstances of each country. In addition, as suggested by the World Bank, policymakers in all countries should double their policy efforts to lower the costs of remittance and improve access to the financial system for immigrants or dispatched workers to ensure a steady inflow of remittances.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 2015

The increase of international and domestic trade according to global industrialization and economic growth has raised the national logistic cost in connection with physical distribution of articles. In order to reduce these costs and rise up national industrial competitiveness, Korea has also tried to improve the efficiency of logistics with various methods as advanced countries did. Especially, Korea government has decided standard dimension of pallets with T11 ($1100{\times}1100mm$) on the basis of unit load system in early 2000s, and certification program for logistics equipments has been operated to keep up the compatibility for the equipments and packaging with modulation of T11. Consequently, this certification program has contributed to extend standardization for logistics and to grow up 3 party logistics, but compared with advanced countries, the rate of national logistics cost to GDP (gross domestic product) still shows about 3% gap as demands for certification have been decreased in the recent. In this study, therefore, we proposed the development of logistics certification system based on social needs as a policy device to activate logistic industry as well as improve the efficiency of national logistics after we had analyzed all of certification programs for logistics being run in Korea. Namely, the first is the development of certification project for Northeast Asia's logistics corresponding to necessity for applying returnable transport system according to increasing the amount of trade between Northeast Asia's countries. The second is the development of certification project for safe transportation of packaging corresponding to costumer's needs for safe transit according to the growth of electronic commerce and the increase of global distribution.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.107-118
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• 2016

In order to ensure revenue of agricultural products which have encountered the dramatic decline of prices in distribution, the export of the domestic farm produce was started and it has been considered to play the significant role to make fundamentals for securing the stable revenue of farms and future of agricultural industries. The Korean government has endeavored to increase scale and volume of export and make the stable structure for export transaction by supporting government policies. Since the export of the agricultural products was influenced by multiple and uncertain factors such as the gap of GDP, distance, the difference of climatess between countries, in this study of agricultural exports, the attributes of export according to changed factors are derived by using RCA and gravity model. As the complexity of export environment has been increased compared to the past, it is necessary to analyze the attributes of agricultural exports. In this study, by using network theory, trade network of agricultural product, the periodic changes of relations, the changes of centrality and maxium flow are derived. Even though the trade quantity of existing agricultural fresh products are still small, the study derived the need to vertical integration for expanding agricultural product export by applying network theory.

• STI Policy Review
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.46-62
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• 2012

This study investigates the effects of the two most important indicators of a nation's state of scientific infrastructure: R&D investment and the number of R&D researchers engaged in high-tech product export competitiveness for a panel of 11 countries/economies from East Asia from 1994 to 2010. A GMM panel estimation method was employed to account for the dynamic effect of trade and to control for un-observed country specific effects that may arise due to an inter-country differences and intra-country dynamics. Accordingly, the empirical results reveal that (once controlled for the influence of per capita income) physical capital and infrastructure, a 1% increase in a country's expenditure on the ratio of R&D to GDP may increase high-tech product export performance by approximately $397 million per year. Other factors constant, a 1% increase in the number of R&D researchers is expected to increase the ability to export high-tech products by approximately $67 million. The East Asian development experience demonstrates how latecomers can follow systematic industrialization and join the handful of economies that have come a long way toward closing the knowledge gap with the global technological leaders. However, this does not mean that the policy approaches and overall commitments pursued by each East Asian economy in relation to R&D investment and acquisition of an adequate pool of researchers, and their ultimate achievements in high-tech product export competitiveness were uniform. As a result, there is still a significant variation among countries/economies in terms of performance. This study recommended a number of potential tools and policy instruments that may assist policy makers to foster R&D as an engine to enhance the high-tech product export competitiveness.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.39-62
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• 2020

Purpose - Korean exports account for a vast proportion of Korean GDP, and large volumes of Korean products are sold in the United States. Identifying and characterizing actual and potential product hazards related to Korean products is critical to safeguard Korean export trade, as severe quality issues can impair Korea's reputation and reduce global consumer confidence in Korean products. In this study, we develop country-of-origin-based product risk analysis methods for social media with a specific focus on Korean-labeled products, for the purpose of safeguarding Korean export trade. Design/methodology - We employed two social media datasets containing consumer-generated product reviews. Sentiment analysis is a popular text mining technique used to quantify the type and amount of emotion that is expressed in the text. It is a useful tool for gathering customer opinions regarding products. Findings - We document and discuss the specific potential risks found in Korean-labeled products and explain their implications for safeguarding Korean export trade. Finally, we analyze the false positive matches that arise from the established dictionaries that were used for risk discovery and utilize these classification errors to suggest opportunities for the future refinement of the associated automated text analytic methods. Originality/value - Various studies have used online feedback from social media to analyze product defects. However, none of them links their findings to trade promotion and the protection of a specific country's exports. Therefore, it is important to fill this research gap, which could help to safeguard export trade in Korea.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.457-479
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• 2013

Through a Chinese rise, Chinese dream is actualizing as the world's great power. According to outlook of World Bank and IMF, Around 2030 China will be a great power bigger than America's economic power. The rise of China will give a huge impact to the whole world. China expands her influence through a global manufacturing base and a global market. To actualize 'Peaceful Rise' Strategy, China has many constraints. Chinese society is facing many difficult social problem due to side effects of a rapid development. Such as the spread of corruption, the severity of wealth gap, environmental degradation and energy shortage. Internationally there are containment from hegemon so-called 'China threat' dispute, Taiwan issue and territorial disputes. Western countries are hostile to China for two reasons. Based on expectations, one is China's socialist system and the other is the rising China which will compete for supremacy with Europe and America. Recent emergence of Chinese nationalism and the containment of the neighboring countries are also serious limiting factors. Domestically they have the rampant corruption in the bureaucracy, weakened capacity of Communist rule, wealth disparity due to the discriminatory economic development strategy, seriousness of rural problem, social instability, lack of social security systems and the development gap between the eastern coastal areas and western inland areas, ethnic minorities problems, the constraint of sustainable development issues due to lack of resources, environmental pollution and energy constraints. Like the former Soviet Union, China may face a dismantlement. After the rise, China may encounter possibilities of a war between great powers or a collapse of Chinese society caused by deepening internal conflict. Serious economic polarization would make peasants and urban workers, who are social vulnerable people, to turn their back to communist party and threaten the justification and the appropriateness of the ruling communist party. Chinese government will think internal system security threat is more formidable risk factor than a system security threat from the hegemon. The decline of great country comes from internal reasons rather than external reasons. To achieve peaceful rise, unification with Taiwan is an essential prerequisite. Taiwan issues are complex problems which equipped with international and domestic factors. Lack of energy resources, environmental pollution in China will bring economic crisis to Korean enterprises. Important influence to Korean economy will be a changeover of the method in economic development. It will turn the balance of investment and consumption, GDP-centered growth to consumption and environment-centered growth. Services industries including finance, environment, culture, education, health care and social welfare will grow. Change in China's growth model will give a great challenge upon the intermediate goods industry in Korea. Korea should reduce the portion of machinery, automotive, semiconductor, steel and chemical-centered export industry to China, and should increase the proportion of the service industry.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.211-238
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• 2005

Korea is far behind other OECD countries in economy-wise productivity: Korea's labor productivity in terms of GDP per hour worked is the lowest among OECD countries. Against the existing productivity gap, there is a worrying sign in Korea's investment trend - rapid fall in machinery and equipment investment with slow increase in R&D investment. The challenge facing Korea is how to transform her economy from catching-up model to a knowledge-based one. The paper shows that, in tandem with the structural changes that today's Korean industries are experiencing, industry's innovation system is also changing. Innovation networks are emerging as the result of economy-wise restructuring since the financial crisis of 1997 and, though still not a dominant force, the newly emerging innovation networks will be the main threads of industry's innovation activities in the future. The changes in industrial innovation system would positively contribute in raising the productivity of the Korean economy. The paper contains a case study on Korea's automobile industry in order to highlight some of main characteristics of the structural changes, in addition to a chapter that gives an overview of the evolutionary paths of the Korea's industrial innovation. The paper assesses that changes can be considered as a positive sign of future growth perspective; but there are further challenges to make the Korea's industrial innovation system effective. The list of such challenges includes strengthening upstream sectors of currently leading industries, expanding the innovation base to SME and promoting technological co-operation between domestic firms and foreign firms.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.55
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• pp.155-179
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• 2003

This paper compares two indicators, economic development and social condition, to find a better way to measure the level of social welfare development. The results show that social condition is more adequate indicator than economic development. The social condition has high correlation with the development of social welfare in all the 78 countries as well as in five groups of countries when the economic development is controlled. The comparison of two indicators reveals important findings. Among other things, the higher the level of social condition compared with economic development, the larger the social welfare expenditure. This tendency is particularly strong among the western European countries and former socialist countries. This result implies that the macro-level policy of social redistribution is also important for the development of social welfare in addition to micro-level policy of income redistribution. As we expected, the results show that the level of Korean social welfare development is very low. Considering our levels of economic development and social condition, predicted social welfare expenditure from regression model is at least 17% of GDP, but we are spending only 30% of this predicted expenditure. Another serious problem in Korean social welfare is unbalanced expenditure between social insurance and public assistance. On the basis of these results, this paper suggests three implications for social policy to improve Korean social welfare: First of all, the gap between predicted and actual expenditures should be closed to improve the minimum level of social welfare. Secondly, the level of social condition itself should be improved to increase the public awareness of social welfare. Finally, the wide difference in expenditure between universal and selective social welfare programs should also be removed to decrease the relative deprivation of the poor.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.87-114
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the economic effects of Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) and human capital using VECM in Korea from 1970 to 2009. Empirical results through VECM show that the coefficients of GDP, GFO(gross fixed capital), LAB(total labor), EXO(export), PCDB(public and commercial loan) and FDI have had a positive impact on Korean economic growth. In contrast, the effects of PCDB and FDI were not as significant as the other variables. In particular, the interaction effect, $FDI^*EDU$(the college graduation variable), was more important than that of the FDI alone. However, the coefficient of $FDI^*EDU$ was not so big. Korean government needs to attract more FDI to enhance Korean economic growth rate by the improvement of investment environment. There are a big amount gap between notification FDI and arrival FDI in Korea. So Korean government and companies should actively persuade foreign investors to invest after their investment notification. Also the Korean college authorities should emphasize more on curriculum which adapts to company skill in the field work.