• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.149-174
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• 2004

Since the economic crisis in 1997, the Korean government has implemented a number of reforms in order to eliminate inefficiencies in both private and public sectors. One of the reforms made in the public sector was to lower the retirement age of teachers from the original age of 65 to that age 62. The ultimate aim of this compulsory policy was to improve the quality level of education by hiring many young teachers instead of senior teachers. It was made based on the calculation that by lowering the retirement age by three years, the government can hire three young teachers with the saved wages. However, this policy has brought an unexpected result; the imbalance between the supply and demand for teachers has become a much more serious problem in Korea's elementary education system The purpose of this study is largely twofold; First of all, it aims to identify the scope of imbalances occurred in the supply-demand system of elementary school teachers in a region of the nation, and also to find out why such imbalance occurred. Secondly, the purpose of this study is to experiment with feasible policy alternatives and their effects on the system and to suggest some resolutions on the imbalance.

• Korean Medical Education Review
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.125-135
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• 2013

Since the establishment of the national medical licensing examination board in 1992, the medical licensing examination system has changed enormously and this has had a number of impacts on examination services. All those reforms were aimed at improving the relevance and reliability of the test. Several attempts of the testing system have appeared in the new examination service, and which have also brought about the changes in the medical school curriculum such as introducing integrated courses instead of traditional subjects, using test scores as a reference to the post-graduation selection test. Some examples of changes in the examination system are as follows: 1) choosing three integrated test subjects and outlines of their reference content instead of 15 academic subjects, 2) adjusting the ratio of multiple choice question items to focus more on the problem solving level, 3) introduction of 'one-best answer' single set and 'extended matching type items, 4) item construction based on real clinical cases and real clinical materials. Recently, a clinical skill test system has been introduced to measure examinees' basic clinical skills competencies. Despite continuing efforts, the examination system still has many issues remaining to be solved. These problems include the differential weighting of test items, appropriate threshold for passing, and practicality of pre-testing to stabilize the passing rate and avoid the hazards of newness and undesirably difficult test items.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-47
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• 2022

This paper introduces a politico-economic model with a welfare state and immigration. In this model, policies on taxes and immigration are determined through a plurality voting system. While many studies of fiscal implications of immigration argue that relaxing immigration policies can substitute for tax reforms in an aging economy, I show that the democratic voting procedure can dampen the effect of relaxing immigration policies as desired policy reforms are not always implemented by the winner of an election. This political economy results in three types of social welfare losses. First, the skill composition is not balanced at a socially efficient level because workers are motivated to maximize their wages. Second, older retirees implement excessive taxes to maximize the size of the welfare state. Third, the volume of immigration is lower than the optimal level given the incentive by young workers to regain political power in the future.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.77-86
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• 2008

Firstly, this study is to compare two types of productivity changes in Seoul's urban bus industry by public transport reforms: one with considering accident costs (ML), the other without considering accident costs (M). The directional distance function (DDF), which is a form of data envelopment analysis, and the Malmquist (Luenberger) productivity index (ML, M) are used for the analysis. The results show that productivity increased regardless of accident costs over time, and the ML index is a little higher than the M index, which means that most firms experienced more of a reduction ratio of accident costs than a reduction ratio of inputs. Secondly, this paper is to analyze how reforms affect productivity changes. The results show that operational speed improvements or passenger increases most affect productivity increases, which means that the installment of median bus lanes or introduction of free transfers among public transport modes were effective in reducing both inputs and accident costs. However, operational system reforms including mid-public management were related with productivity changes but they were not as effective.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.177-189
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• 2020

The dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in great peril. The Appellate Body has ceased to function last December as the United States has blocked the appointment of new Appellate Body members since 2017. The focus of this study is on the examination of US's discontent on the Appellate Body and various efforts to reform the Appellate Body. In a recent report, the US Trade Representative raises its concerns on the Appellate Body including 90 days mandatory deadline, transitional rules for outgoing Appellate Body members, scope of appeal, advisory opinions, precedent, recommendation, and overreach without offering any viable solutions. Some of WTO members and experts proposed several Appellate Body reform measures but agreement between WTO members is unlikely in a foreseeable future. Alternative dispute settlement mechanisms should be seriously considered such as interim appeal arbitration arrangements, separate dispute settlement mechanisms for trade remedies, unilateral retaliatory measures without WTO authorization. Rules-based multilateral dispute settlement system is imperative to small open economies like Korea. The Korean government should actively participate in Appellate Body reform discussions with other WTO members to keep the WTO dispute settlement system from collapsing.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.9 no.2 s.22
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• pp.135-151
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• 2005

Further education for teachers is required for reforms of elementary education curricula and their career development. Principles of relevance, selectivity and hierarchy should be followed in the construction of further education curricula system for math teachers of senior high school. The following curricula should be included in the system: A. moral elevation and idea renewal curricula; B. theoretic curricula on math education; C. curricula on math education design; D. curricula on math education research; E. curricula on modern educational technology; F. curricula on knowledge renewal and extension.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.139-162
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• 2009

This paper confirms previous results indicating that the expenditure elasticity of demand for polluting goods plays an important role in achieving efficiency gains from tax reforms. Moreover, this paper finds that the results of the tax reforms depend not only on the size of the expenditure elasticity for the polluting goods but also on the relative size of the expenditure elasticities between polluting goods and clean goods. It also shows that in order to enhance the overall tax efficiency by the environmental tax reform, the expenditure elasticity of demand for clean goods should be larger than that of polluting goods. The result implies the following policy suggestion: When the tax authority considers green tax reforms, the expenditure elasticities should not be neglected to achieve gains in the overall efficiency of the tax system.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.41-77
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• 2021

It has been 20 years since the gender quota system for expanding women's political representation was enacted. However, the proportion of Korean women's representatives has not exceeded 20 percent. This study examines how the gender quota system, public funding for women candidates, and public funding for women's development, which are the three pillars of the legal system to expand women's representation, have changed systematically over the past 20 years, how they affected women's representation, and what institutional limitations they have. In addition, it explores the im/possible conditions of reforms for expanding women's representation. To reform the legal system for women's representation, it is necessary to understand that Korea's political system is arranged in a gender-based way in a male-dominated structure, while also understanding that the existence of critical actors and mass driving reforms for gender equality in politics is essential.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.1-21
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• 1997

The objective of this paper is to think about what structural reforms of the Korean government S&T development management system might be. Korean society is currently experiencing a drastic socio-economic transformation. The results of this transformation should be reflected on the determining process of the directions and breadths of structural reforms of government S&T development management system. Because the government system design will be based on the premises of socio-economic conditions under which administrative activities perform and also this socio-economic changes can influence on changes of the premises of government management system design. Moreover, S&T development management system is a subsystem of government system so that the directions of structural reform of those subsystems should be considered in the broad framework changes in the development management system of the government. For the last forty years, the Korean government S&T development management system has been based on the premises including transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial society, authoritarianism and centrally controlled institutions, and exteremely small portions of private investments for science and thechonology R & D of the total. Recently, however, the premises of Korean government S&T development management system have rapidly changed. the characteristics of these changes are including tranformation from an industrial society to a knowledge and information intensive society, globalization, localization, and relatively large portion of private investments for science and technology R & C of the total. The basis of government reforms in Korea was the realization of the performances and values through the enhancement of national competitive capacity, attainment of lean government, decentralization and autonomy. However, the Korean government has attached a symbolic value of strategic organizations representing strong policy intentions of government for the science and technology based development. Most problems associated with the Korean government S&T development management system have grown worse during 1990s. Many people perceive that considerable part of this problem was generated because the government could not properly adapt itself to new administrative environment and the paradigm shift in its role. First of all, the Korean government S&T development management system as a whole failed to develop an integrated vision under which processes in formulating science and thechology development goals and developing consistent government plans concerning science and technology development are guided. Second, most of the local governments have little organizational capacity and manpowers to handle localized activities to promote science and technology in their regions. Third, the measure to coordinate and set priorities to invest resources for the development of science and technology was not effective. Fourth, the Most has been losing its reputation as the symbol of ideological commitment of the top policy maker to promote science and technology. Various ideas to reform government S&T development management system have been suggested recently. Most frequently cited ideas are as follow : (ⅰ)strengthen the functions of MoST by supplementing the strong incentive and regulatory measures; (ⅱ)create a new Ministry of Education, Science & Technology and Research by merging the Ministry of Education and the MoST; (ⅲ)create a new Ministry of Science & Technology and Industry ; and(ⅳ)create a National Science and Technology Policy Council under the chairmanship of the President. Four alternatives suggested have been widely discussed among the interested parties and they each have merits as well as weaknesses. The first alternative could be seen as an alternative which cannot resolve current conflicts among various ministries concerning priority setting and resource allocation. However, this alternatives can be seen as a way of showing the top policymaker's strong intention to emphasize science and technology based development. Second alternative is giving a strategic to emphasize on the training and supplying qualified manpower to meet knowledge and information intensive future society. This alternative is considered to be consistent with the new administrative paradigm emphasizing lean government and decentralization. However, opponents are worrying about the linkages and cooperative research between university and industry could be weakening. The third alternative has been adopted mostly in nations which have strong basic science research but weak industrial innovation traditions. Main weakness of this alternative for Korea is that Korean science and technology development system has no strong basic science and technology research traditions. The fourth alternative is consistent with new administrative paradigms and government reform bases. However, opponents to this alternative are worried that the intensive development of science and technology because of Korea's low potential research capabilities in science and technology development. Considerning the present Korean socio-economic situation which demands highly qualified human resources and development strategies which emphasizes the accumulations of knowledge-based stocks, I would like to suggest the route of creating a new Ministry of Education, Science & Technology and Research by intergrating education administration functions and science & technology development function into one ministry.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.361-383
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• 2013

We find that institutional quality of an individual country was highly and significantly correlated with its economic performance in the euro area. We argue that governance reforms proposed at present do not suffice to resolving the fundamental problems of the EMU governance system unless disparities of institutional quality in member states are dissolved. Regarding regional integration, East Asia is far behind the Eurozone not only in institutional elements of the governance system but also in institutional quality at the level of individual nations.