• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.123-148
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• 2012

Deforestation and forest degradation in Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) accelerated from the mid 1980s through the economic crisis in 1990s and is still happening. DPRK has conducted afforestation and reforestation activities against this trend. However there are not many official documents on achievement of forest rehabilitation in DPRK. "Rodong Shinmun," as an official newspaper published by North Korean Workers Party, represents governmental policies and is one of a few accessible information on DPRK which is available in Republic of Korea (ROK). This paper aims to investigate the national forest policies of the DPRK represented in Rodong Shinmun. Total of 499 articles using the word 'Sanlim (forest)' and 'Rimsan (forest product)' in the title of articles were selected for content analysis. The national forest plans and forest policy instruments contained in the selected articles were analyzed. The subjects of represented forest policies were classified into four groups; forestation, forest management, land management and forest protection or conservation. The focus of forest policy was changed from economic utilization of forest resources such as timber production in the 1990s to forest protection in the 2000s. Rodong Shinmun reported more frequently about regulatory instruments and informational instruments than the economic instruments. Official commendation and awards were the main incentives given to the people who contributed to forestry achievements. In particular, forest policies were emphasized by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and afforestation and forest protection were described as patriotic activities in the Rodong Shinmun. In conclusion, this research revealed that Rodong Shinmun plays a role as a means for introducing, propagating and instigating forest policies in the society of the DPRK. The findings help to understand the forest policies of the DPRK which could be useful when designing development aids for DPRK.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.127-156
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• 2006

This paper introduced successful case studies of the EIP (Entrepreneurship Intensive Programs) programs that are planed by 5MBA (Small and Medium Business Administration) and executed by Hoseo University and Jinju National University in 2004. Therefore, the illustrations and examples used in this paper are based on the EIP programs of those schools. Currently there are five graduate schools for Entrepreneurship educations that are originated from the EIP program models and those graduateschools are actively and successfully working. The purpose of this paper is to find out the diffusing strategies of the Entrepreneurship spirits and Entrepreneurship Education programs after careful analysis and review of the EIP programs. The main factors of the Success of the EIP are as follows. First, there were excellent modules of the education process. Second, there were firm and clear goals of the education. Three, there were differentiated contents of the entrepreneurship education programs. Four. each and every education performance was monitored. Five, during the programs, real start-up cases were actually handled and students had many opportunities to present their cases. However, there were some shortcomings to improve and change of the entrepreneurship education. First of all, it was very difficult to make proper education formation that is fit in the purpose of the program. Second, motivating students to find out their own business opportunities so as to turn them into real business was not satisfactory or easy. Third, there were some limitations in distributing and executing the EIP budgets. Therefore, to improve the efficiency of the Entrepreneurship education, following expanding strategies should be complemented. First, continuous redesigning of the entrepreneurship education programs is very important. Second, the specialization of the contents of the entrepreneurship education programs is essential. Third, there should be some discretionary room for the management of the entrepreneurship programs. Fourth, it is also important activating the entrepreneurship networks among schools of the entrepreneurship education. Finally, it is necessary to give some incentives and motivations based on the proper performance evaluation system.

• Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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• no.12
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• pp.47-50
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• 1970

There are many factors affecting the development of sericultural industry in Korea. The setting of a rational pricing system for sericultural products is one of important activities of the Korean Government to improve the incentives to producers. The determination o： the prices for many years were based on the production costs including a certain level of profits. Some of cost items are in conflict both in cocoon producers and silk-reeling industries. Government officials have to evaluate these conflicting problems and estimate the consequences of their decisions. In this situation the final decision often became political decisions. This analysis is aimed at providing an alternative method of setting the prices of sericultural products. The criteria of the equilibrium employed in this analysis are based on economic principle which equilibrium condition is determined by the relationships between the marginal productivity of input factors and factor prices. In order to obtain the related information Cobb-Douglas'functions were fitted using KIST computer and data were obtained mostly from the Bank of Korea and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestru, An important assumption is that "Opportunity Costs" of factors input in both cocoon production and silk-Peeling industries are same, The major finding s obtained are as followings. 1) The sum of coefficient of production elastisity in silk-reeling industries is greater than one. Silk-reeling industries are operating under the situation of increasing return to scale and it is, therefore, expected to develop the industries as the capital-intensive large scale. 2) The cocoon producing farmers are under the situations of the decreasing return to scale and it is expected to continue their cocoon farming as the labor-intensive small scale, assuming the present level of production technology. As the development of commercial farming, the resources input in cocoon production will be shifted to the production for higher profitable crops, 3) The price elastisity of production is higher in cocoon production than in silk-reeling industries. It is expected that the price changing effects on domestic production will be resulted from cocoon producers. 4) Based on analysis results of marginal productivities and the opportunity costs of resources, cocoon price for meeting equilibrium price condition is to be increased by 8-16 percent or standard price level of silk increased by 6-8 percent. There were the possibilities of over evaluation on opportunity cost of resources input in silk-reeling industries, or income transfered from the farmers to the industries. It is recommended that the prices for meeting equilibrium price conditions are to be determined by 72 percent for cocoon and 28 percent for silk-reeling costs, based on standard level of the exporting prices.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.501-507
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• 2017

The shortage of dental hygienists has been a long-standing problem in Korea. Small-scaled dental clinics suffer from a lack of dental hygienists, who seem to prefer working at large-scaled dental clinics. The purpose of this study was to confirm the differences in the working conditions according to the scales of dental clinics. We collected the working information registered via job advertisements through the web-sites of Korean Dental Hygienists Association, Dental Jobs, and Nurse Jobs from July to August 2016. The results were as follows: 96.7% of the advertisements wanted regular workers, while the proportion of part-time workers was the highest (34.8%) in the group with less than 3 employees. The average workdays per week was $5.32{\pm}0.55$ days, and the group with less than 3 employees had significantly longer workdays than the other groups. The daily working time was $8.99{\pm}0.44$ hours, and there was no difference among the groups. Night overtime hours were needed by 54.4%, 45.0%, and 31.3% of the groups with of the groups with 4~7 employees, more than 8 employees, and less than 3 employees, respectively. Information regarding annual leave (60.5%), monthly leave (63.9%), half a day off (32.4%) and vacations (43.1%) were presented in the job advertisements, and these proportions were significantly higher by the group with more than 8 employees. Information on overtime pay (14.4%), night-work pay (13.4%), incentives (34.1%), lunches (60.2%), vacation bonuses (33.8%), and self-development (20.4%) were presented in job advertisements. The group with 4~7 employees had significantly higher proportions in severance pay, vacation bonuses, self-development, and major national insurance. It is necessary to consider the improvement of working conditions, diversity of working styles, and welfare of dental hygienists, and it is suggested that small dental clinics provide more precise working conditions.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.14
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• pp.1-30
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• 2001

To prevent the VAT evasion and to form a sound VAT paying culture, we can draw the policy directions for government as follows: First, it is necessary to strengthen the tax supervision of small business and the administration of tax sources of cash-income industry. Second, the tax-deductible rate of the received tax invoices should be increased in a short-term base, and a simplified taxation system should be abolished in a long-term base. Third, in cases a trader has not received a tax invoice, an additional tax should be applied. Forth, to issue the tax invoice faster and conveniently, it is requested to introduce a new system which issues electronic card of registration when a businessman applies for his/her business registration. Fifth, to make tax standard transparent, it is desirable to punish the violator, relating to credit card regulations, stricter than present and to enforce the electronic bookkeeping. Sixth, for the reduction of noncompliance rate and creating a climate for autonomous, faithful tax return, it is necessary to expand and intensify tax investigation. And also it is necessary to make the level of penalty tax higher up and the level of criminal punishment less down, to keep up tax audit coverage. Seventh, a trader who is eligible for simplified taxation, whose tax base is under 12,000 thousand won, should not be required to pay the value added tax. But it is desirable to cut down them for the fairness of tax burden. Eighth, the effective date of the revised tax law should be fixed. Ninth, it is necessary to reinforce publicity and to educate on tax system and administration, for reducing tax evasion or tax avoidance and encouraging faithful tax return. Tenth, as the tendency of VAT evasion of distribution industry turns out to be the highest, it is requested not only to intensify tax administration on them but also to establish system and incentives, for introducing information system in distribution industry(introducing POS system, computerization of transaction record, establishing EDI between traders).

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.61-75
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• 2007

The method used in this descriptive study is the survey. The purpose of the study is to investigate performances of middle school home economics(HE) teachers regarding the HE subject. Respondents in this study were 177 HE teachers. Questionnaires from HE teachers were collected through e-mails. With the operation of the SPSS/Win (ver10.1) program, the analyses such as mean, standard deviation, frequencies, percents, t-test and ANOVA are done to see the relations between the related variables. The results of this study were as follows. First, the middle school HE teachers performed well above the standards in terms of planning, execution, and evaluation about self supervision related to HE. Second, the HE teachers collected materials for instruction by using literary (books) survey, Internet and mass media. They mainly focused on improving ways of "teaching and learning" and deepening the studies related to contents of textbooks. Third, the HE teachers used various ways to improve self supervision in the following order: mass media, literary (books) survey, participation in societies for researches, meetings, various training and field trip More than half of the middle school HE teachers proceeded to graduate schools, joined meetings for researches and had experiences of taking classes in private institutes. They also made a field trip once or twice a year and depended much on TV programs and education broadcasting programs as ways of improving their performances related to self supervision. While they were actively sharing information with their peer group, they made little effort at analyzing and evaluating their classes and utilizing expert group for their classes. The main problems as to self supervision were that only the half of the HE teachers responded that they were performing self supervision related to their classes well above the standards and the area where they heavily focused on has been "teaching and learning" and "the studies related to contents of textbooks". Therefore, to motivate incentives of the HE teachers for self supervision, meetings for researches should be activated and various training programs should be developed. In addition, government should give administrative and institutional support through a publication of books introducing detailed ways of self supervision and an establishment of centers and institutions for supporting self supervision.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.185-223
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• 2008

This paper considers a heterogeneous agent dynamic general equilibrium model and analyzes effects of an increase in labor income tax rate on labor market and the aggregate variables in Korea. The fiscal policy regarding how the government uses the additional tax revenue may take the two forms: 1) general transfer and 2) earned income tax credit (EITC). The model features are as follows: 1) Workers are heterogeneous in their productivity. 2)Labor is indivisible, hence the analysis focuses on the variation in labor supply through the extensive margin in response to a change in fiscal policy. 3) The incomplete markets are introduced, so individual workers can not perfectly insure themselves against risks related to stochastic changes in income or employment status. 4) The model is of general equilibrium, hence it is equiped to analyze the feedback effect of changes in aggregate variables on individual workers' decisions. In the case of general transfer policy, the government equally distributes the additional tax revenue to all workers regardless of their employment states. Under this policy, an increase in the labor income tax rate dampens work incentives of individual workers so that the aggregate employment rate decreases by 1% compared with the benchmark economy. In the case of EITC policy, only employed workers whose labor incomes are below a certain EITC ceiling are eligible for the EITC benefits. Unlike the general transfer policy, the EITC induces low-income workers to participate the labor market to be eligible for EITC benefits. Hence, the aggregate employment rate may increase by 2.7% at the maximum. As the EITC ceiling increases, too many workers can collect the EITC but the benefits per worker becomes too little so that the increase in employment rate is negligible. By and large, this study demonstrates that EITC may effectively raise the aggregate employment rate, and that it can be a useful policy tool in response to the decrease in the labor force due to population aging as observed in Korea recently.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.129-155
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• 2008

The rate of antibiotics prescription for an acute airway infection significantly varies depending upon the diagnosis type, specialty, and the location of the hospital along with many other related factors. The objective of this study is to empirically investigate the possible relationship between the antibiotics prescription rates for an acute airway infection and the degree of competition in the hospital market regions of mainly the providers of primary medical care services such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics and otorhinolaryngology department. Using the data from Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) regarding the hospitals' antibiotics prescription rates for the acute airway infection and controlling for selected variables of demand and supply sectors, this study tries to figure out that the degree of competition in the hospital market, regardless of what type of competition indexes we employed, has a statistically significant effect on the variations of antibiotics prescription rate of the clinics in local areas. This result implies that as an economic consideration itself, the change in the degree of competition in the hospital market can play a crucial role influencing the treatment behaviors of the medical doctors. More specifically, this study reveals that as the degree of competition increases the antibiotics prescription rate goes up. This result means that if the market becomes more competitive in a specific region so that it might cause a reduction in doctor's income, doctors with rational decision-making process, recognize that the benefit created from inducing patients' seemingly unnecessary demand for medical care (income effect) would be higher than the costs associated with sustaining their targeted income (substitution effect). It is because that the doctors are more likely to prescribe antibiotics which create relatively higher margins than other medical care services in order to sustain their targeted income when the hospital market competition becomes tighter. Even though this study empirically confirms that antibiotics prescription can be affected by the economic incentives, it still raises following issues as limitations of the study: first issue is about the representativeness of the hospital regions segregated for this study, which might be weak in explaining whether these regions are mutually exclusive in reality. Patients actually consider the quality of services, transportation cost, time costs, and any other related factors choosing the doctors or hospitals, and in that sense, this study rules out 'border-crossing' in using the medical care services. Second issue arises in capturing the data of antibiotics prescription rate. Since we use the average rate for each medical institution, we cannot figure out the average rate for each patient so that we are not able to control for the variation of patients' medical conditions. It is because of the unavailability of data regarding each patient's medical condition from HIRA. Thirdly, since this study mainly analyzes the medical institutions providing primary care such as clinics, internal medicines, pediatrics, and otorhinolaryngology department, it is skeptical of whether those institutions can represent the hospital market in respective regions and truly reflect the degree of competition. It needs to extend the study areas and disease types as well as any micro data for future studies.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.485-516
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• 2011

Republic of Korea is small nation that is comprised of 0.7% of the world population and occupying just 0.07% of the world territory. Despite this, Republic of Korea once again proved herself to be as the world's major economic powerhouse by becoming the world's 7th largest exporter in 2010. However, the reality is that Republic of Korea is still significantly concerned about the volatile economic nature and anxiety that is spread across the globe since the global depression that began at the end of 2008 and the financial crisis that has been threatening the Euro-Zone recently. This has resulted in the nation reaching the limitation in significant economic growth and limited creation of jobs within the nation and due to such circumstances, the nation is becoming more aware of the fact that she needs to pay more attention on the service sector and service exports if she was to see a more positive economic outlook in the upcoming future. This research is aimed to analyse the cost that is associated with the service export sector, by examining a number of enterprises in relation to the MICE(Meeting Incentives Convention Exhibition) industry which certainly has both direct and indirect influences on the service exports of the nation Further, the prime goal of the research is to encourage the SMEs of Korea, who have substandard experience associated to foreign exports, to intensify and increase service exports and also the goal extends to the degree to suggest appropriate assistance measures to aid these enterprises to achieve such goals. This research is fundamentally designed and based on the literature research associated with the MICE industry and also, this research is premeditated through the analysis of the case of exports to Vietnam. As the result of research, it has been found out that SMEs in the MICE industry and those of in service export sector are reluctant or even feel insecure to attempt any kind of export of their services mainly due to; the lack of foreign market information and also the lack of experience associated with service exports. Furthermore, it has also been revealed that the difficulty to estimate the validity and profitability of service the export is a significant factor withholding those enterprises from attempting any service export to the foreign markets. Henceforth, in order to aid and stimulate service export to the foreign markets by these SMEs (including those in association with the MICE industry), it is imperative to prepare an one-stop service export assistance program which would provide the information associated with marketing, law and legislation, taxation system and financial area in regard to the global markets.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.105-134
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• 2008

Local opposition and protest constitute single greatest hurdle to the siting of locally unwanted land uses(LULUs), especially siting of high-level radioactive disposal not only throughout Korea but also throughout the industrialized world. It can be attributed mainly to the NIMBYism, equity problem, and lack of participation. These problems are arisen from rational planning process which emphasizes instrumental rationality. But planning is a value-laden political activity, in which substantive rationality is central. To achieve this goals, we need a sound planning process for siting LULUs, which should improve the ability of citizens to influence the decisions that affects them. By a sound planning process, we mean one that is open to citizen input and contains accurate and complete information. In other word, the public is also part of the goal setting process and, as the information and analyses developed by the planners are evaluated by the public, strategies for solutions can be developed through consensus-building. This method is called as a co-operative siting process, and must be structured in order to arrive at publicly acceptable decisions. The followings are decided by consensus-building method. 1. Negotiation will be held? 2. What is the benefits and risks of negotiation? 3. What are solutions when collisions between national interests and local ones come into? 4. What are the agendas? 5. What is the community' role in site selection? 6. Are there incentives to negotiation. 7. Who are the parties to the negotiation? 8. Who will represent the community? 9. What groundwork of negotiation is set up? 10. How do we assure that the community access to information and expert? 11. What happens if negotiation is failed? 12. Is it necessary to trust each other in negotiations? 13. Is a mediator needed in negotiations?