• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.289-306
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• 2021

This paper aims to investigate how and to what extent FDI impacts the relative demand for skilled labor within firms in the case of developing countries. The analysis uses a sizeable micro-level dataset for Malaysian manufacturing industries using the System-GMM estimators to control the estimations' endogeneity problems. For this purpose, the study uses foreign equity share at the firm level to investigate foreign ownership effects at the firm level and the Horizontal FDI index by Smarzynska Javorcik (2004) to analyze FDI intra-industry linkages influence on the structure of labor demand for Malaysian domestic firms. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership increases the skilled demand within Malaysian manufacturing through the learning process, exclusively for small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs). Conversely for foreign-owned firms, changes in their skilled-labor share do not associate with changes in firm-level foreign equity share. We conclude that foreign ownership per se is not the major contributing factor for skill upgrading in Malaysian manufacturing firms. Furthermore, the competitive pressures caused by foreign firms' presence within the same industry - namely horizontal FDI - has a significant negative spillover effect on the level of skilled-labor share for domestic firms in the Malaysian manufacturing sector within periods of the understudies.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 2019

Jobless Growth, one of the most issue keywords for Korea's economy at this moment, stands for an economic situation where the unemployment rate once edging up at the downturn does not fall sharply even after a business cycle is on the stage of its recovery. A remarkable progress of ICT has intensified the apprehension of technology displacing human labor. A remarkable progress of ICT has intensified the apprehension of technology displacing human labor historically. Nowadays, ICT as the main cause for recent jobless growth in Korea ends up with pointing out. This study is to investigate whether the ICT leads to an economic situation of jobless growth. We served an empirical analysis using firm-level panel data from 2009 to 2013 and estimated the effects of ICT on both firm's employment and productivity. A result suggests not only does the employment increase with the rise of ICT investment, but also the employment becomes a complete mediator in terms of linking ICT and firm's productivity. It turns out to be a groundless fear that the ICT rules out human labor causing jobless growth for Korea's economy according to the result revealed.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.79-91
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• 1995

As an exit to solve the economic depression of the development countries in the early twentieth century, the 'old international division of labor' developed. The economic crisis(i.e., under-consumption crisis) was due to the absence of the mode of regulation compatible with the extensive regime of accumulation(i.e., "Fordist" regime). The crisis was solved by the state intervention through the creation on institutions in order to increase the level of consumption. Until the late 1960s when "high Fordism" reached(i.e., a harmonious relation between the monopoly mode of regulation and the intensive accumulation of capital), the developed core countries enjoyed a remarkable economic growth. The external market was not a necessity for the economic growth because there were increases in labor productivity and proportional increases in real wages and thus increases in consumption level. In the 1970s, however, the core faced with economic crisis again. Due to the breakdown of the postwar "Fordist" regime of capital accumulation and the post 1973 world depression, the core needed the Third World as a solution for their internal and international economic crisis. Thus the 'new international division of labor'(NIDL) arose. The "Fordist" method of production(i.e., the divisions of production process) led to the territorial division of labor and to the detailed division of labor. The aim of the NIDL is to exploit reserve armies of labor on a world scale and thus to reduce production costs. According to the NIDL model, the Third World countries have been developing by the core countries' investment on mainly labor-intensive industries and thus have been playing an important role in the global economy. And the NIDL theorists argue that multinational corporations have increasingly invested in the Third World nations and contributed to the economic growth in those regions. Tables presented in the paper show that the global trend since the 1970s does not follow the argument exactly as the NIDL theorists predicted. On the contrary, the core countries focus on developing technology, adopting the automation of production process, and trading within the core countries rather than on investing in the periopheral countries. The continuing investment of multinational corporations into the periphery is not because of cheap labor force but because of the market potentials in the regions. Majority of corporations of the core tries to reduce production costs by investing in technological development more intensively and also by changing regional strategies (i.E., investment from metropolitan areas to medium - or small - size cities, focusing on agglomeration economy, boosting regional diversification, etc.) within their own countries. The main purpose of the paper is to review and to criticize the NIDL theory based on some empirical data.IDL theory based on some empirical data.

• Management Science and Financial Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.13-25
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• 2014

We investigate an optimal retirement time and consumption/investment policy of a wage earner who expects to find a better investment opportunity after retirement by being freed from other work and participating fully in the financial market. We obtain a closed form solution to the optimization problem by using a dynamic programming method under general time-separable von Neumann-Morgenstern utility. It is optimal for the wage earner to retire from work if and only if his wealth exceeds a certain critical level which is obtained from a free boundary value problem. The wage earner consumes less and takes more risk than he would without anticipation of a better investment opportunity.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.41 no.11
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• pp.151-169
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• 2003

This study is to investigate the important factor for household private education expenditure. Especially, this study analyzed the influence of financial management characteristics. For this, the income level is classified by comparative poverty and analyzed the influence power The data for this study was "the Korean Labor Panel" conducted by Korea Labor Institute in 2000. The result showed the demographic factors by the income level and financial characteristics have big difference. Also, income level affects private education expenditure. For lower income level, demographic factors affect more than financial factors. This result explained the private education expenditure as luxurious goods. For middle income level, financial factors affect more than demographic factors. This explained the private education expenditure as choice goods. For upper income level, the private education expenditure was explained as investment goods.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.289-297
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• 2021

Purpose - This study analyzed the correlation between economic liberalization and foreign direct investment. The purpose of this study is to seek ways to attract foreign direct investment from developing countries. Design/methodology/approach - This study analysed with observations of 19 from 2000 to 2018 using a fixed effect model, a random effect model, and a two-way fixed effect model. Findings - First, it was found that economic liberalization had a positive effect on attracting foreign direct investment in the early stages of economic liberalization. Second, it was found that economic liberalization in the deepening stage of economic liberalization had a negative effect on attracting foreign direct investment. In general, it was found that the higher the level of economic liberalization in developing countries is not accompanied by innovative changes in the industrial structure, the higher the level of economic liberalization is likely to decrease the inducement of foreign direct investment due to negative factors such as an increase in labor costs. Overall, this study approved that Economic liberalization have a non-linear (inverted U-shape) relationship with the inflow of foreign direct investment. Research implications or Originality - First, this study attempted to expand the variables for the determinants of FDI by analyzing economic factors which is a determinent of FDI. Second, economic liberalization generally has a positive effect on foreign direct investment, but it proved that it does not have only positive effects as a factor of attracting foreign direct investment in developing countries. The advantage of low wages in ASEAN countries acts as a factor for foreign direct investment, but as the degree of economic liberalization increases, the environment such as government size, guarantee of property rights, international trade freedom, fiscal soundness, and regulations change positively. On the other hand, it can be suggested that if the industrial level is less, it may lead to a loss of comparative advantage and a decrease in investment.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.121-135
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• 2020

Since many researchers were interested in measuring the performance of information technology investment, many studies have been conducted with various data sources and analysis methods, and most studies report that IT investment produces significant and positive results. Many of these studies have been conducted at the enterprise level, but different results may occur at the industry level. In the case of the electronics industry, if the performance of the IT highly increases, the sales of the IT produced in the electronics industry may decrease, and the added value of the electronics industry may also decrease. As a result of analysis, the increase in the IT capital of the US electronic industry did not increase the added value of the industry, but the increase in IT capital per worker in the industry had a positive effect on the increase in value added per worker (labor productivity) in the industry. In addition, the increase in IT capital in the US electronics industry has resulted in a decrease in the number of workers.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 2008

This paper shows that labor mobility is positively related to R&D intensity at the industry level in Korea. Different from the perception based on individual firm-level studies arguing that firms can be reluctant to R&D in fear of the job transfer of employees, firms in industries which have high job transfer of employees turn out not to reduce investment in R&D. This result is also confirmed by 2SLS regression. This result supports that, if there exist spillover effects through the job transfer of employees, job transfer can positively contribute to R&D activities.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.67-89
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• 2004

In this paper, I examine the impacts of father's education, a proxy for family wealth and income, on the individual's education, occupational choice and labor force status. I find that father's education influences the level of individual educational investment and occupational choices directly, whose findings are quite different from those of Blau and Duncan(l967) and Phang and Kim(2000). I also find that father's higher level of education induces an individual to withdraw from the labor force, which results in erosion of inequality among family. Therefore I argue that the inheritance of inequality in family wealth tends to persist, while the erosion of inequality proceeds, as well.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.39-55
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• 2022

Purpose - This study empirically examines the effect of the Korean government export promotion program (EPP) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) export performance using firm-level data. Unlike most previous studies that investigated some specific samples of firms, this study analyzes a vast amount of SME data of the Korean Small and Medium Business Administration over the period 2005 to 2008. Design/methodology - An endogeneity problem arises when a firm's probability of being selected is correlated with the likelihood of successfully implementing EPPs. To control for the endogeneity of the EPPs in a relatively short-period sample, we employ 2-Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) RE-Tobit and bivariate Tobit procedure. Findings - Analyses show that Korean government EPPs have positive significant effects on SME exports. Empirical results also show that SME export activities are significantly encouraged by R&D investment and capital intensity, but not obviously by labor productivity. Originality/value - This study provides evidence that SME capital intensity, R&D investment, and the number of workers are significant determinants to SME exporting activities, whereas per worker labor cost and employee education are not. These results imply that even for SMEs, firm size is a major factor in promoting exporting activities.