• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.86-98
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• 2013

This study began with the fact that the relationship between eductional environments and housing price needs to be understood in the context of the structuring of socio-spatial disparity. In other words, this paper focuses on the fact that the eduction with public features and functions plays a role of housing price determination and the rising price is privatized only to cause socio-spatial inequality. The study first examines how the education factors determine the housing price and cause increasing social inequality in Seoul at the macro level. It also carried out more detailed quantitative analysis on the relationship between educational environment factors and housing price with the case study of Yangcheon-gu, Seoul. This study found out that the close relationship between educational environment, housing price and social disparity at various spatial scales. It also figured out the the educational environment factors play an important role of housing price determination as much as material features per se. This means that the relationship between education, housing price and inequality needs to be dealt with not just socially but also in spatial perspective. In addition, the housing price determination is not just technical research but an social science issue in the context of rising socio-spatial disparity. This study is of only significance as a starting point of promising related researches in the future and much more efforts will be needed.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.140-157
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• 2012

Most of global citizens in the globalization era want to live peacefully in the symbiotic relationship among each region or locality with its identity. From this perspective, the new regionalist models of development such as new industrial districts, industrial clusters, regional innovation systems, and global city-regions isn't helpful to most of regions because they were developed to increase the global competitiveness of industrial region from a few advanced industrial areas. This study attempts to develop 'regional differential development' as an alternative regional development theory. This theory puts emphasis on the truth that the difference or differential industry between regions in the real world connotes two essential values of development like the symbiosis of global citizens and the regional identity. Regional differential development seeks the development of regional differential industry on the basis of geographical elements with differential advantage, and hence it reviews significantly geographical elements including location, natural environment(landform, soil, climate, etc.), natural resources, population, transportation, culture, and landscape which appear substantially differently among regions. And to realize regional differential development successfully, it is crucial that actors(government, company, related institutions, and regional residents) actively participate and play each complementary role in the relationship of cooperation and conflict. Further study needs to secure the universal validity of this theory through many empirical studies.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.667-690
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• 2016

This paper reviews the evolution process of global production network(GPN) discourse, from its origin to the recent theorization, namely GPN 2.0. In so doing, the discursive formation of global production networks is introduced in comparison with a competing discourse global commodity/value chains, with particular attention to conceptual and analytical lacunae in the latter. This article also outlines how the global production network perspective has become a useful discursive and practical tool that allows the examination of the nexus of global economy, transnational corporations, and regional development. Subsequently, a theoretical dearth in the approach is discussed in reference to key critiques, and in this context Yeung and Coe's recent theorization GPN 2.0, which is centered on casual mechanisms and network configurations is reviewed. This paper suggests that the theory adequately addresses the problem of casuality lacking in its precedented conceptual framework, and that it helps exploring the formation and evolution processes of varied production networks(including intrafirm coordination, interfirm control, strategic partnership, and extrafirm bargaining) in connection with competitive dynamics and risky environments. As a result of the theorization, the difference between GPN and the chain approaches has become more apparent, and the idea of extrafirm bargaining is particularly important in the differentiation. Extrafirm bargaining is seen to be a comprehensive networking form inclusive of such GPN 1.0 analytical concepts as value, embeddeness, and power, and research attentive to, and engaging with, the extrafirm networks is expected to help transcending the chain governance approaches' analytical excess of interfirm linkages and industry-centeredness.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.93-115
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• 2007

As strategies for creating profits are differentiated by the national economic system and development strategies related to firms' geographical scope, they depend on the spatial contexts and product characteristics. In this perspective, strategies for the profit creation of Korean textile and clothing FDI firms invested in Vietnam has involved in the geographical differentiations in accordance with the development path of transitional economies, changes in institutional environments and the characteristics of products. Therefore. the main purpose of this research is to identify the way in which they have their own identity in transitional economies by investigating business pattern, commodity chain and extra-firm relations, which are related to institutional dynamics in Vietnam. There are two main characteristics of Korean textile and clothing FDI firms in Vietnam. The first is that all business activities involved in the commodity chain of them from R&D to production is controlled by global retailer and distributors, which is the buyer-driven commodity chain and the typical commodity chain of the textile and clothing industry. The second could be defined as over- or unforced embeddedness into the institutional legacy of the Soviet system, because they have been incorporated into pre-existing networks based on reciprocal relations in Vietnam.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.212-228
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• 2004

This paper is concerned with an important aspect of regional income convergence, ${\beta}$-convergence, which refers to the negative relationship between initial income levels and income growth rates of regions over a period of time. The common research framework on ${\beta}$-convergence which is based on OLS regression models has two drawbacks. First, it ignores spatially autocorrelated residuals. Second, it does not provide any way of exploring spatial heterogeneity across regions in terms of ${\beta}$-convergence. Given that empirical studies on ${\beta}$-convergence need to be edified by spatial data analysis, this paper aims to: (1) provide a critical review of empirical studies on ${\beta}$-convergence from a spatial perspective; (2) investigate spatio-temporal income dynamics across the U.S. labor market areas for the last 30 years (1969-1999) by fitting spatial regression models and applying bivariate ESDA techniques. The major findings are as follows. First, the hypothesis of ${\beta}$-convergence was only partially evidenced, and the trend substantively varied across sub-periods. Second, a SAR model indicated that ${\beta}$-coefficient for the entire period was not significant at the 99％ confidence level, which may lead to a conclusion that there is no statistical evidence of regional income convergence in the US over the last three decades. Third, the results from bivariate ESDA techniques and a GWR model report that there was a substantive level of spatial heterogeneity in the catch-up process, and suggested possible spatial regimes. It was also observed that the sub-periods showed a substantial level of spatio-temporal heterogeneity in ${\beta}$-convergence: the catch-up scenario in a spatial sense was least pronounced during the 1980s.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.656-674
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• 2014

The objective of this study was to examine the distinctiveness and generality of landforms of the Korean peninsula, and further discover geomorphological principle that can be applied to land and environmental management in Korea. The research targeted East Asia and Korea, with terrain analysis conducted at a continental scale, national scale, and regional scale sequentially. East Asia displays complicated characteristics and evolutionary history of geotectonics, but exhibits distinct northeast-southwest geomorphological structure and connectivity at the continental level. While the Korean peninsula follows this pattern on a continental scale, it also features NNW-SSE direction (Nangrim and Taebaek Mountains) geomorphological connectivity that intersects at a right angle. From a national perspective, the Korean peninsula hosts the most diverse geomorphological features within East Asia. It does not have a high average altitude, but has relatively high slope angle and intricate topographical distribution in comparison to neighboring areas. While the mountains and plains of the Korean peninsula display a smooth connection, geomorphologically similar areas such as Shikhote-Alin, Huanan in China, and Japan have clear characteristics that divide the mountains and plains. Despite the distinctiveness and diversity that appear in East Asian topography on the regional scale, the connectivity that links the top of mountain (hill) to stream is identical among all areas as a general rule. It is collectively considering the connectivity and the geomorphological and ecological processes that arise within this connectivity that will serve as the focal point for sustainable landscape management.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.517-537
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• 2014

In this study, traditional markets were classified into two categories-urban or rural. This paper presents a case study of the Tongin market in Seoul and the Bongwha market in North Gyeongsang Province. Based on a survey of the customers and local residents in these markets, the peoples who have intention to show visitors around their traditional markets take more pride as local residents than peoples who do not have intention to show visitors around their traditional markets. This study includes surveys in 24 categories dealing with how local residents recognize the traditional market as regards local community, local culture and local economy. Consequently, the customers of the Tongin market and the Bongwha market had very strong expectations that their traditional markets would be popular with visitors. These surveys show that when these traditional markets were reported in the press and media, the satisfaction level of local residents was very high. Most of the respondents said that the more the local traditional market develops, the more the region develops. And, most of the respondents said that all local residents have to cooperate to develop a traditional market. To promote traditional markets that can revitalize communities, marketplaces need to be regarded as places that contain human life. In addition, there needs to a cultural and humane perspective brought to the fore. To conclude, the most effective way to solve the problem of traditional markets is to make them even more traditional.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.578-592
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• 2001

Based on a survey sample of farm households in three provinces of Korea, this article reports the perspectives of fuel-time farmers regarding trade liberalization, its effects on their lives, and the future of small-scale farming. While the agricultural sector is being transformed under neoliberal policies, farmers, with life or no preparation for a global market order, are forced to modernize their farming operations. The findings from the survey indicate that farmers accede to terms of global integration in principle while disapproving state rural policies in practice. The survey data also confirm that intra-regional differences in farmers'perceived satisfaction with living conditions, government farm policies, and socio-economic/labor issues. Disparities in the degree of discontent with government policies and socio-economic well-being are explicit between the relatively diversified region of Kyonggi Province and the farming-dependent regions of Chunbuk and Kyongbuk Provinces. The overall findings uphold that most farmers who have not been fully exposed to free market mechanisms are confronted by increased uncertainties and economic hardships. The findings propound that agricultural/rural policies need to reflect long-term, macroeconomic changes, and regionally/locally-based agricultural structure.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.505-518
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• 2003

The purpose of this paper is to review Post-Fordist urban economic theories that have tackled the recent changes of urban economies in large cities in the world since 1980s, so that we can conceptualise the changes of urban economies in Korean cities. In the perspective of the Post-Fordist urban economic theories, the recent changes of urban economies in the world are deeply related to the transformation of capitalist world economic system from Fordism to Post-Fordism. To see these changes which can be called as the new urbanization process in the economic aspect, we will focus especially such theories as new industrial space (district) theory based on the flexible specialization paradigm, informational city theory based on the information and communication mode paradigm, and cluster and regional innovation theory based on the institution and network paradigm. Also we will consider the social polarization process and dual city phenomena that have been observed for the most part of big cities in the world.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.165-183
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• 2015

It is well known that, since the 15th century, the amount of soil loss in our country due to change in land use by human has increased more rapidly than ever before. However we cannot answer the question 'How long can the soil persist under the current rates of soil loss?', because it was difficult to quantify the soil production rate. With the advancement of accelerated mass spectrometry, the attempt to quantify rate of soil production and derive soil production function succeeded, and recently it was also applied into the Daegwanryeong Plateau. Here we introduce the principles for quantifying soil production and deriving soil production function using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides, and then compare the soil production rates from the plateau with soil loss data after the late 20th century, and finally estimate how long the soil can persist. Averaged soil production rate since the Holocene derived from the plateau is revealed as ${\sim}0.05[mm\;yr^{-1}]$, and, however, the recent soil loss rate of intensively used farmlands at the same region is up to sixty times greater than the soil production rate. Thus, if current land use system is maintained, top soils on the cultivated lands over hillslopes especially in upland areas are expected to disappear within several decades at the earliest.