• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.129-146
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• 2014

This paper investigates how industrial diversity affects unemployment and employment instability from the perspective of the regional economy. Through this analysis, we examine how the industry-specific policy to promote some industry strategically in most of areas affects the stability of the regional economy. We measure Herfindahl indexes using the 1993-2010 data of 16 regions in Korea, and use panel regression model for empirical analysis. The main results from this empirical analysis are summarized as follows. First, we confirm that the industrial structure of most regions has been changed to the direction of specialization in 1990s and to the direction of diversification in 2000s through analyzing the changes in the values of Herfindahl indexes during the given period. Second, we find from the estimation results of panel regression model that the higher industrial diversity in most of regions is, the lower the unemployment rate is. However, a statistically significant relationship between industrial diversity and employment instability only partially confirmed. Third, there exist high unemployment rate and employment instability in most metropolitan areas, but it is hard to say that this relationship is highly statistically significant. From the results of the empirical analysis, it is likely that the industry-specific policies such as the regional strategic industry development policies unlike policy goals make the unemployment rate to rise and economic instability to increase. From the viewpoint of employment aspects, the strategies to increase industrial diversity would be desirable rather than those to specialize in the industrial structure.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.123-146
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• 2017

This paper examines the persistence of relative consumer price indices for 15 regions in Korea including 6 metropolitan cities and 9 provinces over the period of 1990-2016. In particular, we ask if relative regional price indices contain a common stochastic trend and find that they are not. We then investigate how quickly these relative prices converge to their long run value and find that a half-life of a deviation from the long run value is in the range of 13 to 22 months for the aggregate consumer price indices and in the range of 7 to 13 months for the tradable goods price indices, which is much quicker than the estimates of previous studies. These estimates suggest that existing monetary models with the realistic duration of price rigidities can generate the persistence in relative price indices.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.69-86
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• 1999

One of the conclusions from the researches of the last 40 years on the relationship between technological development and economic growth is that technology is an essential factor in economic growth. A majority of firms in developing countries, including Korea, are small to medium sized, so technology transfers is an alternative to developing in those technologies. Such firms prefer technology transfers over self-development because of time and money savings. This paper analyzes the types and processes of technology transfers and suggests a direction and tasks to establish a technomart through an examination of domestic and foreign case studies. Laws, organizations and institutional aspects which are related to establishing technomart are also discussed.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.357-379
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• 2015

We investigate interconnectedness and the contagion effect of default risk in Asian sovereign CDS markets since the global financial crisis. Using dynamic conditional correlation analysis, we find that there are significant co-movements in Asian sovereign CDS markets; that such co-movements tend to be larger between developing countries than between developed and developing countries; and that in the co-movements intra-regional nature is stronger than inter-regional nature. With the Spillover Index model, we measure contagion probabilities of sovereign default risk in CDS markets of seven Asian countries and find evidence of contagion effects among six of them; Japan is the exception. In addition, we find that these six countries are affected more by cross-market spillovers than by their own-market spillovers. Furthermore, a rolling-sample analysis reveals that contagion in the Asian sovereign CDS markets expands during episodes of extreme economic and financial distress, such as the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, the European financial crisis, and the US-credit downgrade.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.103-123
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• 2021

This paper examines the impact of the regional cash subsidies which were granted in some districts in addition to the national universal stimulus payment in South Korea related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate the effects of the cash distribution per resident on aggregate credit and debit card sales and sales by industry using the difference-in-difference method. The increment in card spending due to the cash subsidy is about 1.58%p in total, and this effect is concentrated within a single month. The consumption stimulating effect is prominent among (semi)-durable goods that do not require close interactions between customers and sellers. In contrast, the effect is relatively small in the high-contact face-to-face service sectors and restaurants, areas the COVID-19 pandemic hit directly. On the other hand, some service sectors where customers could wear face masks, such as education and fitness, experienced a substantial sales boost due to the cash subsidy.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.240-250
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• 2018

By the end of 2017, in a world of 7.6 billion people, there were inequalities in healthcare indices both within and between nations, and this gap continues to increase. Therefore, this study aims to understand the current status of regional inequalities in healthcare indices and to find an action plan to tackle regional health inequality through a geo-economic review in Korea. Since 2008, there was great inequality in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by region in not only metropolitan cities but also districts in Korea. While the community health statistics from 2008-2017 show a continuous increase of inequality during the last 10 years in most healthcare indices related to noncommunicable diseases (except for some, like smoking), the inequality has doubled in 254 districts. Furthermore, health inequality intensified as the gap between urban (metropolitan cities) and rural regions (counties) for rates of obesity (self-reported), sufficient walking practices, and healthy lifestyle practices increased from twofold to fivefold. However, regionalism and uneven development are natural consequences of the spatial perspective caused by state-lead developmentalism as Korea has fixed the accumulation strategy as its model for growth with the background of export-led industrialization in the 1960s and heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s, although the Constitution of the Republic of Korea recognizes the legal value of balanced development within the regions by specifying "the balanced development of the state" or "ensuring the balanced development of all regions." In addition, the danger of a 30% decline or extinction of local government nationwide is expected by 2040 as we face not only a decline in general and ageing populations but also the era of the demographic cliff. Thus, the government should continuously operate the "Special Committee on Regional Balanced Development" with a government-wide effort until 2030 to prevent disparities in the health conditions of local residents, which is the responsibility of the nation in terms of strengthening governance. To address the regional inequalities of rural and urban regions, it is necessary to re-adjust the basic subsidy and cost-sharing rates with local governments of current national subsidies based mainly on population scale, financial independence of local government, or distribution of healthcare resources and healthcare indices (showing high inequalities) overall.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.77-90
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• 1999

This paper aims to understand the changing characteristics of the Kumi region as a locality in Korea through the regional geography of the world-system approach. To illustrate the changing regional characteristics, we analyzed the economic characteristics or position of the Kumi region within the world-economy and its spatial structure with three divisions of Korean capitalist periods: the Japanese colonial period ($1910{\sim}1945$), the social chaos period ($1945{\sim}1960$), and the economic development period ($1960{\sim}$present). In the Japanese colonial and social chaos periods, as Korean society was incorporated into the peripheral zone within the world-System (world-economy), Kumi also was made into a peripheral agricultural area. As a result, the Kumi region shaped the rural spatial structure without an urban center or regional dominant center. In the development period, influenced by the manufacturing-centered economic policy which boosted Korea as a semi-periphery within world-economy, Kumi also was developed into an industrial region(or semi-periphery) with the establishment of the Kumi electronic and textile industrial complex. This industrialization transformed the rural spatial structure of Kumi into a core (urban center)-periphery (rural area) structure. As we identified above, the regional geography of the world-system approach turned out to be a useful methodology to study a locality or internal region. Therefore we should make efforts to study such regions through the regional geography of the world-system approach.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.60-74
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• 2013

The discourses of creative city have been developed as a development and rehabilitation policy or plan in the contexts of globalization or deindustrialization society mainly progressed by Western capitalist nations, and there are a variety of effects due to the implementation of creative city in different national and local conditions. Many nations or cities have adapted and practiced the idea of creative city as a policy of development or rehabilitation without its critical examination. The purpose of this study is to make a conceptual framework of newly interpreting creative city, particularly focused on creative industry and class. The framework of creative city as a becoming locality consists of culture and art, creative actor and place continuously interacting, and it will take an active role to solve a variety of problems in the cities or regions due to globalization or deindustrialization. Creative city as a becoming locality should be developed in a close relation with the real situations in the future.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.170-183
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• 2002

Recently it is supposed to be a shift to regional geography. To understand the emergence of the new regional geography, It must be remarked that the progress of capitalist production and consumption change our conceptional apparatus such as representation of space. Region is one of the important mode of representations of space and time. In the Fordist capitalism of 20th century, development is regarded as diffusion of capitalist expansion of western worlds. State must support capitalist growth through regional policies which include constructing of infrastructure and regionalization of spatial division of labour. The regional development theories contributed as ideology and policy tools for state intervention. The region was simply one of the most logical classification tools of organizing geographical informations. In the theories of regional development, the concept of region was reduced to the formal unit of classification. As the transition from Fordism to flexible accumulation, the region is again acquiring its 'identity' and 'authenticity'. In this tendency of the revival of region, it is expected that good achievement could be made in the field of regional geography through relevant research methods. It is also believed one of the available means are historical approaches to the cultural and ecological regions. The historical approaches to cultural and ecological regions are not only correspondent with cultural development strategies of local governments, but also could convey regional identities through both narrativization of place and aestheticization of landscape.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.228-237
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to develop an index to measure regional creativity factors from previous research, as well as to empirically analyze the relationship between regional creativity and regional growth. We conduct panel analysis on the balanced panel data of regional creativity in fifteen Korean cities and provinces during 2008-2012. The result of hypothesis testing are as follows: First, amongst factors of regional creativity, sub-factors such as creative personnel and intangible asset (of the basic asset factor), creative enterprise (of the economic agent factor), and convergence and creative industries (of the core industry factor) showed significant influential relationships with GRDP (Gross Regional Domestic Product) as positive. Concerning the systemization factor, all sub-factors showed no significant relationship with GRDP. Second, amongst the factors, creative personnel (of the basic asset factor), start-up and entrepreneurship (of the systemization factor), creative enterprise (of the economic agent factor), the regional space factor, and convergence industry (of the core industry factor) showed significant positive relationships with employment rate. However, tangible and intangible creative asset (of the basic asset factor), convergence management and administration (of the systemization factor), Large/middle/small enterprises and central government/municipalities (of the economic agent factor), and creative industry (of the core industry factor) showed no significant relationship with employment rate. The results of this study will provide insight into the current situation for regional creativity, and review the process and short and long term performance. In addition, it will be a basic means to lead the central government's policy of strengthening local autonomy and decentralization.