• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-30
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• 2021

The objective of our study is investigating the effects of the minimum wage on a producer price index (PPI) and selected restaurant menu prices. As an identification strategy, we exploit inter-industrial and inter-regional variations in the share of workers who are affected by the minimum wage. Estimation results show a significant relationship between the share of workers affected by the minimum wage and prices. Specifically, a PPI and selected restaurant menu prices tend to rise by 0.77~1.68% and 0.16~1.86%, respectively as the share of workers affected by the minimum wage increase by 1%p. These estimates imply that during the period of our analysis 0.82~3.01% and 4.45~47.04% of overall changes in a PPI and selected restaurant food prices are associated with the adjustment in the minimum wage.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.97-124
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• 2001

Co-residence is a type of intergenerational private transfers of resources: money, time and space. Adult daughters and their elderly parents decide to co-reside, depending on their utility levels before and after co-residence that mainly depend on the health status of the elderly. Therefore, co-residence implies positive net benefits to both parties in the sense that, when they co-reside, elderly parents share childcare and adult daughter provide elderly care. In other words, formal (paid) care can be substituted with informal (unpaid) one. Both marriage and giving births are considered as the major obstacles to labor market attachment of women who bear burdens of home production and childcare. Co-residence can be a solution for married women to avoid career interruption by sharing burdens with their elderly parents. However, most previous studies using the U.S. data on intergenerational private transfers focused on elderly care and have concluded that they reduce government expenditures associated with public subsidies to the elderly. This study focuses on adult daughters and it examines effects of co-residence on labor supply of married women in Korea, who face limited formal childcare programs in terms of both quantity and quality. It applies the Tobit model of married women's labor supply to the data from the Second Wave of the Korean Labor and Income Panel Survey( 1999), in order to investigate effects of co-residence and the work and health status of the co-residing elderly as well as their own health status. Four specifications of the empirical model are tested that each includes co-residence with elderly parents, their gender, or their work and health status. Estimation results show that co-residence, co-residence with female elderly, and co-residence with not-working female elderly have significant positive effects on labor supply of married women while poor health status of co-residing female elderly does not bring about any negative effects. However, co-residence with male elderly, regardless of their work and health status, has no significant effect The results indicate that co-residence is closely related to sharing of home production among female elderly and adult daughters who are married and, through intergenerational private transfers of resources in terms of time, it helps women avoid career interruption.

• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.52-70
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• 2009

This study is to analyse the reimbursement prices of drugs in Japan. Japan has the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, and the world's largest price-controlled pharmaceutical market. The reimbursement prices of new drugs in Japan are determined by confidential negotiations between the manufacturer and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare. Pharmaceuticals account for a larger share of total healthcare expenditures in Japan than in most other major pharmaceutical markets such as France, Germany, United Kingdom and United States. Prescription drugs' share of total healthcare spending has slightly increased in recent years, from 20.2% in 2000 to 21.5% in 2004, the most recent year for which data are currently available. This trend is attributable to the effect of the Japanese rapidly aging population that stimulates demand for healthcare services. There are several method of price setting for drugs as below. First, on the initial pricing of branded drugs, is the similar-efficacy pricing method and cost calculation method. Second is postmarketing price changes which are biennial price revisions under the rule of National Health Insurance. Third is the rule of the generics price. Recently, the generics market is expanded because there are increasing numbers of hospitals by DPCs(Diagnosis-procedure Combinations).

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.189-206
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• 2020

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to clarify the mediating effect of profitability and activity in the relationship between productivity and stock return, assuming that the productivity of the company will affect share prices with the parameters of profitability and activity. Design/methodology/approach - The study extracted productivity indicators, profitability indicators, activity indicators, and share price-related indicators from 1999 to 2018 of non-financial enterprises listed on the securities market, and then classified them into three factors: productivity (labor productivity LP, capital productivity CP), activity (TT), and profitability (net profit rate NI, operating profit ratio OI) through the factor analysis method, and analyzed the impact of each factor on the stock return through steps 1 to 3. Findings - The regression analysis shows that productivity has a significant positive effect on the stock return through the full mediating effect of profitability and activity. Research implications or Originality - In a situation where the relationship between productivity and profitability is not clear, this study is meaningful in that it has empirically analyzed that productivity has a positive effect on the stock return by mediating effects of profitability and activity.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2019

Purpose - This research empirically proves that global shipbuilding industry leadership has moved to China from Korea. Design/Methodology - Competitiveness is measured by AHP for the weights of comprehensive competitiveness, which is the output mixture of three attributive factors: shipbuilding technology, shipbuilding contract price, and export credit. Findings - China is far ahead of Korea for standard vessels such as bulkers and containerships with competitiveness weights of 0.762 and 0.612, respectively, against 0.238 and 0.388 of Korea. Korea is maintaining its competitiveness only in LNG carriers (174k CBM) with a competitiveness weight 0.621. China and Korea have similar competitiveness for chemical carriers, complex vessels with a small hull size. The sources of Chinese competitiveness are shipbuilding contract price and export credit. With the majority share of standard vessel types in the world fleet, China will hold a bigger market share than Korea in the global shipbuilding industry in the forthcoming years. Implications - The swing factors of market power are shipbuilding technology and contract price. If China fails to further develop shipbuilding technology for shipowners worried about the reliability of the Chinese-built vessels, shipowners may swing back to Korea. The rising Chinese labor cost will expedite this swing in the forthcoming competition. Originality/value - To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper that quantitatively examines the competitiveness of shipbuilding between China and Korea by comparing attributive factors for competitiveness.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.1-28
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• 2022

This paper studies how COVID-19 has affected the labor market in Korea through a general equilibrium model with multiple industries and occupations. In the model, workers are allocated to one of many occupations in an industry, and industrial or occupational shocks alter the employment structure. I calibrate the model with Korean data and identify industrial and occupational shocks, referred to here as COVID-19 shocks, behind the employment dynamics in 2020 and 2021. I find that COVID-19 shocks are more severe for those with jobs with a higher risk of infection and in those that are more difficult to do from home. Interestingly, the relationship between COVID-19 shocks and infection risk weakened as the pandemic progressed, whereas the relationship between COVID-19 shocks and easiness of work-from-home strengthened. I interpret the results as meaning that the pandemic may direct future technological changes to replace tasks that require contact-intensive steps, and I simulate the impact of such technological changes through the lens of the model. The results show that such technological changes will lower the demand for manual workers compared to the demands for other occupations. This contrasts with the earlier trend of job polarization, where manual workers continued to increase their employment share, with the share of routine workers secularly declining at the same time.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.73-87
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to confirm the productivity of housework empirically by analyzing the newspaper articles during the financial aid from the IMF. During this period, Korean Households expenses. And Korea government also wanted to share the burden of overcoming the currency crisis with households. Theoretically, Home economists has approved the productivity of housework as it increases the worth of wage by reducing cost of labor reproduction. So this article try to verify the productivity of housework by analyzing if there was public demand of housework as a means of reducing expenses during the IMF regime, based on newspaper articles. The major findings that are derived from the study are as follows : First, during the IMF regime, Households and housewives were described as an agent of overcoming economic crisis in newspaper articles. Second, households were required to substitute money expenses for housework to cut expenses. These results show that housework has worth as a productive labor and contribute to society and households as it increases the worth of wage and deceases the cost of living.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.105-133
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• 2005

This paper attempts to verify that the economic gap between the workers in (large) firms with unions and those in (small and medium size) firms with no unions has recently been widened rapidly. A comparison of the wages of the workers belonging to the business establishments with and without trade union shows that the union premium has increased very sharply since 1997, after a relatively long periods with little changes. Also found is that union sector has witnessed a sharper decline in the share of the new entrants among workers as well as a faster increase of the average tenure of workers. These all indicate that the trade unions have forced a market equilibrium to move farther away from the competitive equilibrium in recent years.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.253-273
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• 2020

This paper investigates the impact of the effective minimum wage, defined as the log difference between the minimum and the median wages, on wage inequalities in the OECD countries. Unlike the previous studies that focus on single countries in which the minimum wage has no cross-sectional variation and rely instead on within-country variations of wage distribution across regions or socio-economic characteristics, we use a country panel that allows for both cross-sectional and time-series variations in minimum wage. We also control for more factors than in the previous studies whose absence may cause endogeneity. Our results confirm the previous findings that increases in minimum wage alleviate the wage inequality at the lower tail of the wage distribution, while having little effect at the upper tail. The estimated effect is larger for women than for men, which is consistent with the fact that the share of workers who are directly affected by the changes in minimum wage is bigger among women than men. An application of the IVs of Autor, Manning and Smith (2016) supports the robustness of our findings.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.13
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• pp.55-64
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• 1995

Apple is most favorable fruit in Korea, and apple farmland has been increased before and after the agreements of Uruguay Round and apple is considered as one of strategic agricultural goods. Especially expansion of apple farmland is concentrated in Kyungpook region because of the suitable climate and its market share is about 70 percents in 1992. But in tree age of apple, although newly and replanting area is increasing, the rate of old orchards is higher than that of other regions. In varieties of apple, it is concentrated in Fuji and is forecasted to increase in the future. The amount of apple production of Kyungpook region is 480 thousand tons, that is concentrated in Wui-sung, Young-ju and An-dong. The quantity of apple production per 10a. is 1,315kg, that is low level compared with that of America and Japan, and the gap of technology among farmers is heavily. The difficulties of apple farming in Kyungpook region are summarized as follows. first, the lack of mechanization and facilities due to the small scale of farmland, second, lack of rural labor force, third, concentration on Fuji apple varieties, fourth, low productivity of apple farming.