• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.55-75
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• 1992

At the outset of import liberalization, most economists expected a significant drop in the prices of domestic goods that faced foreign competition. However, it is now generally acknowledge that a significant drop in prices of those goods has not occurred. A common claim is that the prices did not drop significantly because the major importers of many imported goods were also the domestic producers of competing goods. The objective of this paper is to analyze the welfare effect of importation by domestic firms that produce competing goods, to identify the factors that facilitate such business practices, and to formulate a policy that could improve the welfare. We proved that importation by competing domestic firms definitely raises the prices of both imported and domestic goods compared to the situation where foreign goods are imported by non-producers, ceteris paribus. The intuition behind this result is that since a producer-importer is essentially a cartel, its overall profit maximization requires reduced competition between the products that it sells. On the other hand, if a producer-importer is more efficient at distrinbution than a simple importer, the comparison between the two cases is a priori indeterminate. We also find that the industries in which domestic producers are actively involved in importing competing goods are the ones in which the distribution channels are tightly controlled by importer-producers. This finding suggests that exclusive dealing contracts, which work as an entry barrier, may be the source of importing by domestic producers. We argue that in a country such as Korea, where financial market is highly incomplete, tight control of the distribution channels by oligopolistic manufacturers is likely to be an effective entry barrier that leads to importing by domestic producers of similar goods. We further argue that seemingly superior distribution costs of importer-producers is likely to be a result of market foreclosure which would disappear once the entry barrier of exclusive dealing contracts is removed. Above findings suggest that market imperfections are the source of importation by domestic competitors, which in turn constitutes a market imperfection in itself and reduces consumer welfare. As potential remedies, we considered three alternatives; direct price control by the government over the imported goods sold by major domestic producers, regulation of trade itself between major producers, and regulation of exclusive dealing contracts. For reasons both theoretical and pratical, we find that the last alternative is the most attrative. Prohibiting exclusive contracts between manufacturers and dealers in industries where exclusive dealing contracts are a significant entry barrier is expected to break up the importer-producer cartel and improve the welfare.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.112-126
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• 2012

The theme is to analyze the time-series changes of design elements on golf courses and golf country club and its factors influencing to the changes with regard to 81-membership country club located in the Capital Area of Seoul, created in the periods from 1964 until 2011. The research methods is to analyze the time-series changes of environmental factors influencing to the changes of the elements on the golf course by book review, and to compare and speculate the results of the analysis on the environmental factors with the time-series changes on the golf course elements of statistical analysis as like regression analysis. The research results were as follows. The first, the environmental factors influencing to the change of golf course elements were analyzed as the five elements of the golf-related policies and regulations, the economy, the numbers of golfers, PGA and KPGA golf tournaments, the golf instruments. The second, the type and scale of the location of the golf course were showing trends of transformation from flat ground to mountainous one and from small scale to large one. The third, it was analyzed that he golf course elements as like the sizes, length, numbers of golf course elements as like fairway, green, bunker, teeing ground and pond were influenced by the law and regulation, the increase of amateur golfers, the promotion of techniques of golfers, the increase of the chance of foreign course designer's involvement to domestic market through the opening of PGA and KPGA tournaments etc. The fourth, the promotion of golf instruments and the flying distance were the factors influencing to the numbers of bunker, the lengths of holes. The fifth, it was revealed that the trends of increase of sizes of ponds influenced by enacting environmenal friendly laws and regulations, considering of landscaping, reflecting of design trends followed by the opening of PGA tournaments. Finally, it was proposed that the further research would be introduced with regard to the qualitative analysis onto the changes and influential factors of golf course design.

• Korean small business review
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-102
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• 2009

With the continued globalization of world markets, transfer pricing has become one of the dominant sources of controversy in international taxation. Transfer pricing is the process by which a multinational corporation calculates a price for goods and services that are transferred to affiliated entities. Consider a Korean electronic enterprise that buys supplies from its own subsidiary located in China. How much the Korean parent company pays its subsidiary will determine how much profit the Chinese unit reports in local taxes. If the parent company pays above normal market prices, it may appear to have a poor profit, even if the group as a whole shows a respectable profit margin. In this way, transfer prices impact the taxable income reported in each country in which the multinational enterprise operates. It's importance lies in that around 60% of international trade involves transactions between two related parts of multinationals, according to the OECD. Multinational enterprises (hereafter MEs) exert much effort into utilizing organizational advantages to make global investments. MEs wish to minimize their tax burden. So MEs spend a fortune on economists and accountants to justify transfer prices that suit their tax needs. On the contrary, local governments are not prepared to cope with MEs' powerful financial instruments. Tax authorities in each country wish to ensure that the tax base of any ME is divided fairly. Thus, both tax authorities and MEs have a vested interest in the way in which a transfer price is determined, and this is why MEs' international transfer prices are at the center of disputes concerned with taxation. Transfer pricing issues and practices are sometimes difficult to control for regulators because the tax administration does not have enough staffs with the knowledge and resources necessary to understand them. The authors examine transfer pricing practices to provide relevant resources useful in designing tax incentives and regulation schemes for policy makers. This study focuses on identifying the relevant business and environmental factors that could influence the international transfer pricing of MEs. In this perspective, we empirically investigate how the management perception of related variables influences their choice of international transfer pricing methods. We believe that this research is particularly useful in the design of tax policy. Because it can concentrate on a few selected factors in consideration of the limited budget of the tax administration with assistance of this research. Data is composed of questionnaire responses from foreign firms in Korea with investment balances exceeding one million dollars in the end of 2004. We mailed questionnaires to 861 managers in charge of the accounting departments of each company, resulting in 121 valid responses. Seventy six percent of the sample firms are classified as small and medium sized enterprises with assets below 100 billion Korean won. Reviewing transfer pricing methods, cost-based transfer pricing is most popular showing that 60 firms have adopted it. The market-based method is used by 31 firms, and 13 firms have reported the resale-pricing method. Regarding the nationalities of foreign investors, the Japanese and the Americans constitute most of the sample. Logistic regressions have been performed for statistical analysis. The dependent variable is binary in that whether the method of international transfer pricing is a market-based method or a cost-based method. This type of binary classification is founded on the belief that the market-based method is evaluated as the relatively objective way of pricing compared with the cost-based methods. Cost-based pricing is assumed to give mangers flexibility in transfer pricing decisions. Therefore, local regulatory agencies are thought to prefer market-based pricing over cost-based pricing. Independent variables are composed of eight factors such as corporate tax rate, tariffs, relations with local tax authorities, tax audit, equity ratios of local investors, volume of internal trade, sales volume, and product life cycle. The first four variables are included in the model because taxation lies in the center of transfer pricing disputes. So identifying the impact of these variables in Korean business environments is much needed. Equity ratio is included to represent the interest of local partners. Volume of internal trade was sometimes employed in previous research to check the pricing behavior of managers, so we have followed these footsteps in this paper. Product life cycle is used as a surrogate of competition in local markets. Control variables are firm size and nationality of foreign investors. Firm size is controlled using dummy variables in that whether or not the specific firm is small and medium sized. This is because some researchers report that big firms show different behaviors compared with small and medium sized firms in transfer pricing. The other control variable is also expressed in dummy variable showing if the entrepreneur is the American or not. That's because some prior studies conclude that the American management style is different in that they limit branch manger's freedom of decision. Reviewing the statistical results, we have found that managers prefer the cost-based method over the market-based method as the importance of corporate taxes and tariffs increase. This result means that managers need flexibility to lessen the tax burden when they feel taxes are important. They also prefer the cost-based method as the product life cycle matures, which means that they support subsidiaries in local market competition using cost-based transfer pricing. On the contrary, as the relationship with local tax authorities becomes more important, managers prefer the market-based method. That is because market-based pricing is a better way to maintain good relations with the tax officials. Other variables like tax audit, volume of internal transactions, sales volume, and local equity ratio have shown only insignificant influence. Additionally, we have replaced two tax variables(corporate taxes and tariffs) with the data showing top marginal tax rate and mean tariff rates of each country, and have performed another regression to find if we could get different results compared with the former one. As a consequence, we have found something different on the part of mean tariffs, that shows only an insignificant influence on the dependent variable. We guess that each company in the sample pays tariffs with a specific rate applied only for one's own company, which could be located far from mean tariff rates. Therefore we have concluded we need a more detailed data that shows the tariffs of each company if we want to check the role of this variable. Considering that the present paper has heavily relied on questionnaires, an effort to build a reliable data base is needed for enhancing the research reliability.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.167-178
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the direct investment decision factors in the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Vietnam, and to contribute to the creation of domestic jobs and the revitalization of the inter-Korean economy. According to the analysis, most of the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Vietnamese investment companies are entering the complex for the purpose of utilizing cheap labor, cheap factory locations, sales/development of local markets, and bypass export production bases in third countries. This can be divided into production-efficient investors using differences in production price such as labor costs and market-oriented investors to sell and expand the local market, which seems to be consistent with global direct investment patterns such as Nike, Apple, and Amazon. However, even if the North Korea-U.S. denuclearization talks ease or lift sanctions, Vietnamese investors' willingness to invest in the North Korea has been most burdened by the possibility of closing special economic zones due to political risks. Last but not least, it is important to note that those willing to invest in North Korea are mostly smaller enterprises in textiles, sewing, footwear and leather industries-those that benefit from low-cost labor. Since their size is small, they need policy support in financing, especially in the early stages of their business. Even after they grow past the early stages, those without collateral would still need state guarantee letters to get financing. Thus, it is worth considering to use the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund to compensate commercial banks for bad loan loss or for low-interest loans for smaller SMEs. The interviews with SMEs found that red-tape is one of the biggest difficulties they face. Thus, it is recommended that a one-stop service agency should be established to cover all processes and issues related to inter-Korean economic cooperation to eliminate redundancy and expediate government support for SMEs.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.29-73
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• 2012

Aviation safety is the State and industry's top priority and more scientific approaches for fatigue management should be needed. There are lately various studies and regulation changes for crew fatigue management with ICAO, FAA and EASA. ICAO issued the provisions of fatigue management for flight crew since 1st edition, 1969, of Annex 6 operation of aircraft as a Standards and Recommended practice(SARPs). Unfortunately, there have been few changes and improvement to fatigue management provisions since the time they were first introduced. However the SARPs have been big changed lately. ICAO published guidance materials for development of prescriptive fatigue regulations through amendment 33A of Annex 6 Part 1 as applicable November 19th 2009. And then ICAO introduced additional amendment for using Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) with $35^{th}$ amendment in 2011. According to the Annex 6, the State of the operator shall establish a) regulations for flight time, flight duty period, duty period and rest period limitations and b) FRMS regulations. The Operator shall implement one of following 3 provisions a) flight time, flight duty period, duty period and rest period limitations within the prescriptive fatigue management regulations established by the State of the Operator; or b) a FRMS; or c) a combination of a) and b). U.S. FAA recently published several kinds of Advisory Circular about flightcrew fatigue. U.S. passed "Airline Safety and FAA Extension Act of 2010" into law on August 1st, 2010. This mandates all commercial air carriers to develop a FAA-acceptable Fatigue Risk Management Plan(FRMP) by October 31st, 2010. Also, on May 16, 2012, the FAA published a final rule(correction) entitled 'Flightcrew Member Duty and Rest Requirements; correction to amend its existing prescriptive regulations. The new requirements are required to implement same regulations for domestic, flag and supplemental operations from January 4, 2014. EASA introduced a Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) 2010-14 entitled "Draft opinion of the European Aviation Safety Agency for a Commission Regulation establishing the implementing rules on Flight and Duty Time Limitations and Rest Requirements for Commercial Air Transport with aeroplanes" on December 10, 2010. The purpose of this NPA is to develop and implement fatigue management for commercial air transport operations. Comparing with Korean and foreign regulations regarding fatigue management, the provisions of ICAO, FAA, EASA are more considering various fatigue factors and conditions. Korea regulations should be needed for some development of insufficiency points. In this thesis, I present the results of the comparative study between domestic and foreign regulations in respect of fatigue management crew member. Also, I suggest legal proposals for amendment of Korea Aviation act and Enforcement Regulations concerning fatigue management for crew members. I hope that this paper is helpful to change korea fatigue regulations, to enhance aviation safety, and to reduce the number of accidents relating to fatigue. Fatigue should be managed at all level such as regulators, experts, operators and pilots. Authority should change surveillance mind-set from regulatory auditor to expert adviser. Operators should identify various fatigue factors and consider to crew scheduling them. Crews should strongly manage both individual and duty-oriented fatigue issues.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.146-168
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• 1995

problems involved in defining and identifying it. However, data on ownership of business establishments may be useful and one of the best alternatives for this empirical research because of use of limited information about control This study examines the spatial patterns of external control in the Korean manufacturing activities between 1986 and 1992. Using the data on ownership iinkages of multilocational firms between 15 administrative areas, it was possible to construct a matrix of organizational control in terms of the number of establishments. The control matrix was disaggregated by three types of manufacturing industries according to the capital and labor requirements of production processes used in. On the basis of the disaggregated control matrix, a series of measures were calculated for investigating the magnitude and direction of control as well as the external dependency. In the past decades Korean industrialization development has risen at a rapid pace, deepening integration into the world economy, together with the continuing growth of the large industrial firms. The expanded scale of large firms led to a spatial separation of production from control, Increasing branch plants in the nation. But recent important changes have occurred in the spatial organization of production by technological development, increasing international competition, and changing local labor markets. These changes have forced firms to reorganize their production structures, resulting in changes of the organizational structures in certain industries and regions. In this context the empirical analysis revealed the following principal trends. In general term, the geography of corporate control in Korea is marked by a twofold pattern of concentration and dispersion. The dominance of Seoul as a major command and control center has been evident over the period, though its overall share of allexternally controlled establishments has decreased from 88% to 79%. And the substantial amount of external control from Seoul has concentrated to the Kyongki and Southeast regions which are well-developed industrial areas. But Seoul's corporate ownership links tend to streteh across the country to the less-developed regions, most of which have shown a significant increase of external dependency during the period 1986-1992. At the same time, a geographic dispersion of corporate control is taking place as Kyongki province and Pusan are developing as new increasingly important command and control reaions. Though these two resions contain a number of branch plants controlled from other locations, they may be increasingly attractive as a headquarters location with increasing locally owned establishments. The geographical patterns of external control observable in each of three types of manufacturing industries were examined in order to distinguish the changing spatial structures of organizational control with respect to the characteristics of the production processes. Labor intensive manufacturing with unskilled iabor experienced the strongest external pressure from foreign competition and a lack of low cost labor. The high pressure expected not only to disinte-grate the production process but also led to location of production facilities in areas of cheap labor. The linkages of control between Seoul and the less-developed regions have slightly increased, while the external dependency of the industrialized regions might be reduced from the tendency of organizational disintegration. Capita1 intensive manufacturing operates under high entry and exit barriers due to capital intensity. The need to increase scale economies ied to an even stronger economic and spatial oncentration of control. The strong geographical oncentration of control might be influenced by orporate and organizational scale economies rather than by locational advantages. Other sectors experience with respect to branch plants of multilocational firms. The policy implications of the increase of external dependency in less-developed regions may be negative because of the very share of unskilled workers and lack of autonomy in decision making. The strong growth of the national economy and a scarcity of labor in core areas have been important factors in this regional decentralization of industries to less-developed regions. But the rather gloomy prospects of the economic growth in the near future could prevent the further industrialization of less-developed areas. A major rethinking of regional policy would have to take place towards a need for a regional policy actively favoring indigenous establishments.

• Strategy21
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• s.33
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• pp.113-147
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• 2014

While China's military rise is an issue of growing importance to regional security, it is worthwhile to note that it is not China's military modernization per se, but its capacity to project and sustain power along and beyond its borders--in particular, the possibility to resolve forcefully its outstanding maritime disputes and various contingencies. This essay argues that China's "anti-access capability"--a U.S.-coined term originally developed for a Taiwan contingency--is equally applicable to other major regional cases such as the Spratly disputes and a North Korean contingency. Furthermore, notwithstanding China's continuos efforts to develop and deploy various types and classes of weapons/platforms, it is the Russian systems and technologies that are most capable and thus likely assigned to the highest mission-critical areas. In assessing China's current and likely future military capability as well as their implications for the region, it is necessary to take note of the following: • There exists asymmetry of military capability between China and its weaker neighbors. While the PLAN is weak in several important aspects, for instance, many of its neighbors' navies are weaker still. • Some have argued that China's foreign policy behavior apparently became more "assertive" in 2009-2013, but it is wiser to keep in mind that China has almost always been assertive and aggressive when it comes to what China defines as "sovereignty and territorial issues" as well as its newest "core interests." • On the South China Sea disputes it is the function of U.S. presence in the theater--in the form of overseas bases and the freedom of navigation--and the PLA's own limitations to project and sustain power for an extended period of time that have largely prevented armed. • While Taiwan remains the idee fixe of China's diplomacy and military, it is and will be a tough nut to crack. China's recent creeping attempts for economic integration with Taiwan should be seen in this context. • China and Japan, the two regional heavyweights and traditional rivals, will likely have a bilateral relationship that is replete with difficulties and tension. China's unilateral announcement of its ADIZ in November 2013 as well as the occasional yet persistent disputes with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyudao/Diaoyutai islands are only the latest manifestation of this deeper and difficult relationship. • For Korean security it is imperative to take into account the geostrategic and historical factors. On top of the existing military threats from North Korea, the ROK should be able to employ a) hedging strategy, b) "limited defense sufficiency" strategy, and c) rock-solid relations with the United States.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.87-103
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• 2010

In the study, we introduce the trend in domestic and foreign web accessibility, as well as the legal system that ensures web accessibility. Based on Korean Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (KWCAG)1.0, we investigated the web content accessibility of 80 tertiary health-care hospitals and general hospitals in Korea. We evaluated accessibility by combining accessibility-based criteria (ABC) with usability-based criteria (UBC). ABC was limited to an alternative text for Guideline 1, using a small number of frames and keyboard accessibility for Guideline 2. UBC checked the voice service (TTS), resizing text, providing multi-lingual websites, and disclosing web accessibility policy. KADO-WAH2.0 was used for representing the compliance rate. The evaluation result was a considerable improvement from previous results, even though the rate of compliance with web accessibility was generally insufficient. There was a significant difference between those medical centers which did and did not comply with web accessibility. Incidentally, many hospitals were found to have attempted to confront and come to terms with web accessibility. In future, the following factors are advisable for medical centers with publicity or public interest: they must employ active and aggressive promotion of establishment of independent accessibility guidelines to secure web accessibility, they should effect an improvement of the realization of web accessibility, there can be constant education and promotion, and there can be an institutional supplementation, as well as others.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to propose the direction of AI education in K-12 education through investigating and analyzing aspects of the purpose, content, and methods of AI education as the curriculum and teacher training factors. We collected and analyzed 9 papers as the primary literature and 11 domestic and foreign policy reports as the secondary literature. The collected literatures were analyzed by applying a descriptive reviews, and the implications were derived by analyzing the curriculum components and TPACK elements for multi-dimensional analysis. As a result of this study, AI education targets were divided into three steps: AI users, utilizer, and developers. In K-12 education, the user and utilizer stages are appropriate, and artificial intelligence literacy must be included for user education. Based on the current computing thinking ability and coding ability for utilizer education, the implication was derived that it is necessary to target the ability to create creative output by applying the functions of artificial intelligence. In addition to the pedagogical knowledge and the ability to use the platform, The teacher training is necessary because teachers need content knowledge such as problem-solving, reasoning, learning, perception, and some applied mathematics, cognitive / psychological / ethical of AI.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.163-170
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of R&D learning organization activities of domestic small and medium-sized businesses on economic/technological results. This study, through investigation on preceding studies of domestic and foreign learning organization researchers, examined the definition, characteristics, and deteriorating factors of learning organization, and learned dependent variables, which are the definition of organizational performance, and relationship between learning organization and organizational performance. Then it performed a survey targeting small- and medium-sized businesses in Gumi and grasped the relationship between R&D capability (study planning, vision goal adequacy, project management, commercialization of technologies) and learning organization capability (creation of constant learning opportunities, knowledge sharing and utilizing system, strategic learning leadership) by classifying them to seven independent variables, using regression analysis. Because this study grasped the effect of R&D learning organization activities on organizational performance, it is expected to promote forming R&D learning organization for active R&D activities and contribute to enhancing small and medium-sized businesses' recognition on the need of R&D activities.