KJC Korea
Journal Central

Since 1960’s until now, there are numerous cases of unwanted immigration because of large-scale land development projects led by governments in Korea. Although land developers have granted compensations for indemnity and supplementary living allowance to them, immigrants are still suffering from the radical changes of their residential environment. From this perspective, this research was to analyze how seriously the life satisfaction of their life has been negatively influenced by forced immigration using SEM(Structural Equation Model) and AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process). Through this analysis, we reached a conclusion that ‘economic factors of immigrant’ is the most important factor influencing rather then ‘physical facilities of house’ and ‘social connectedness’. Thus, the current compensation system for forced immigrants needs to be revised in accordance with the concept of restoring the quality of life, which already is practiced in some advance countries.

It is important that a weighting of assessment elements is exactly estimated for group decision making. The purposes of this study are to analysis the problem for the existing method of weighting estimation and to develop a improved method. To achieve this, we carried out a survey of three types(AHP, direct point allocation, direct pair comparison) on two separate occasions and elicited the relation of interval of scale and weighting from the survey data. Furthermore, we developed the new modified ratio by using the relation of interval of scale and weight as a weighting estimation method. On a comparison result for the weighting of modified ratio and existing ratio, recognized weighting by respondents was closer modified ratio than existing ratio. From the result of analysis for the “Water Quality : Ecology․Landscape”, relative errors of existing ratio(AIJ/AIP) are 21.36%/17.09% and -30.66%/-24.52% and relative errors of modified ratio(AIJ/AIP) are 5.22%/4.40% and -7.49%/-6.31% respectively. By using the modified ratio of scale interval, we can estimate the weighting that the questionnaire respondents consider and clear away the controversy about AIJ and AIP. This study is expected to provide a weighting estimation method that can derive a decision-maker’s intention in many different fields.

Social capital is created from the people’s everyday interactions occurred in urban spaces. Thus, sudden changes in social and physical environments such as large-scale residental site development affect formulation (or dissolution) of social capital. However, the relationship between residental site development and social capital may differ from the types of development and social capital. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the differentiated effects of residental site development on general social capital and neighborhood social capital using the data from Social Capital Survey in Korea. Main findings are as follows. Firstly, the longer duration in a region significantly increases both neighborhood trust and network, but it has little significant effects on general trust and network. Secondly, residential site developments have negative effects on neighborhood network and those effects decrease over time at least before 2000. However, it is surprising that residential site developments after 2000 have the positive effects on neighborhood network although it is statistically insignificant. The result may be derived from the changes of the types and process of urban regeneration as well as new town development taking into consideration social inclusion and neighborhood interactions since 2000s in Korea.

REITs when first adopted to Korea in 2001 after the financial crisis, it had many expectations to improve Korean real estate indirect investment market and to expand real estate investment to public. This research aims to figure out the most important factor that affects the REITs in Korea through correlation analysis between the REITs return and the capital market and the property market. The result shows that KOSPI index return had low correlation with the REITs return. The Government bond had high correlation with the REITs and it shows that the REITs includes risk free rate in its price. Corporate bond had high correlation with the REITs return also, but it is negative. The factors of real estate market in Korea, such as the rent growth and land price growth had positive effect to REITs return. But the rent price growth had weaker significance. The capitalization rate of each REITs had negative influence to REITs return and it shows that the net asset value of the REITs portfolio affects the price of REITs. The findings of this study has some implications to Korean REITs system to be supplemented considering the facts below. The REITs has higher correlation with the property market than the capital market. The REITs price is determined by the selling price in the liquidation stage at the end to the fact that they have expiration date and because of that, the Korean REITs has low liquidity before the expiration date.

This paper is to identify the future role of public rental housing and policy direction focusing on rental system comparisons and main policy changes in the last twenty years for 10 countries. The theoretical framework on rental system is based on rental system theory that is developed from both of Harloe and Kemeny’s work in the mid 20th century. Comparison of each system embraces five elements; the stock of public rental housing, target groups, main providers, rent level, relationship between private renting and homeownership. Results comparing two rental system reveals that there is decreasing stock of public rental housing, new actors for public rental housing providers, residualisation. It has been driven by a market oriented policy shift, deregulation, privatisation, and encouragement of homeownership within the context of pervasive neo-liberalism. It is shown that there is a greater shrinkage of public housing and residualised sector in dualist rental system. In unitary rental systems, it means the process of transformation toward dualist rental systems. But the role played by public rental housing in the future will be gradually replaced by new model under 21st century new economic environment. The existing model is expected to be switched toward new model by accomplishing social mix, various providers, the role of government on the improvement of market conditions, competition and financial viability.

During the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis, real estate investors recognized that systematic risks could not be easily avoided by way of portfolio diversification due to the strong co-movements among international real estate capital markets. Therefore, this study provides re-examinations on real estate portfolio diversification effects under uncertain investment environments. To analyze the stability of diversification effects across investment horizons, rolling correlation, Granger causality, and cointegrating relations are tested to examine short- and long-run diversification effects. The main research findings of this paper are as follows. First, during the period of regime-changes it is very unlikely to expect portfolio diversification effects because risk-return tradeoffs and correlation relations among assets become unstable in the short run. Second, diversification effects are very limited during the crisis due to the higher correlations and strong spill-over effects between real estate and financial assets. Finally, after the international financial crisis, real estate and domestic capital markets performed differently. Therefore, real estate investors should consider portfolio re-balancing in a timely manner and readjust their optimal asset allocation strategies to maximize their portfolio investment performances, measured by Sharpe ratio, to reflect real estate investment environmental changes.

This study aims at comparative analysis on urban planning system of England, Germany and the USA, and thus to derive useful implications for the korean planning system. The focus of analysis is laid on two aspects of urban planning system; the one, substantial aspect and the other, procedural aspect. The substantial aspect deals with the status of urban planning within the national spatial planning system, the types of urban plans and their roles, and the tools for plan implementation. In respect to plan-making procedure, the authorized bodies for plan-making, the way of conforming various plans and policies, and the participation of stake-holders, especially, citizens in plan-making are analysed. The implications derived are as follows: First, korean urban planning system seems to adopt all the useful systems from the three countries, but superficially without necessary fundamentals. Second, the tools for plan implementation are not sufficient enough to keep the urban built environment sustainable. Third, citizen participation in plan-making is largely in formality. Thus, the quality of life of korean cities is still far beyond the desirable state comparing with economic accomplishment. An active but stepwise innovation of urban planning system is urgently needed.

The number of single or 2-person households is rapidly increasing in our society, corresponding to rapid changes in familial structures and lifestyles. Now it is thus common to have family members live separately. The concept of “network residence” was developed along with this new familial structure. This study aimed to explore a new concept of “network residence”, related characteristics, and future housing directions to accommodate these new familial characteristics. The major data collection method was a questionnaire survey targeting 411 single college students living in dormitories. We investigated their network residence conditions, relationships with family members, and opinions. Results showed that the average monthly cost of tuition, housing, and living was approximately 1.60 million Korean Won (19 million KRW annually). The majority of the expenses (93%) were paid by parents or close relatives. Many students (69%), however, had strong psychological bonding to friends or acquaintances rather than their parents. Interestingly, students’ perceived family boundary was far broader - about triple - than the actual family size. They considered their relatives not even living with them as their family members. This showed students had conceptual connections with their actual and extended family members. This is the evidence to show how the concept of network residence works for them.

Growth of GRDP(Gross Regional Domestic Product) is affected by inputs of production factors such as labor and capital, and improvement of total factor productivity(TFP). To sustain constant growth and competitiveness of regions, improvement of TFP is preferred to increase of traditional production factors. The theoretical arguments and substantive importance of TFP have vastly introduced in diverse academia, however, less well-known are the rate of return of each production factors to determine TFP and its determinants to explain the TFP. The purpose of the present study is to estimate TFP and its determinants for metro-level cities and provinces during the periods of 1995 to 2009 in Korea. We found that TFP tended to be increased during the periods, but increasing trend of its rate of return has been diminished. We also found that rate of return of TFP for metro cities is lower than that of provincial regions. Diverse determinants have been identified to increase the level of TFP. Among others, capacity building of superior human resources, improvement of financial independence, expansion of welfare budget were important factors that enhance the TFP. The present study also vindicate the effects of urbanization economy and localization economy is smaller than expected a priori. This finding implies that in order to increase TFP, reinforcing networks among diverse innovative agencies is more important than functional integration of geographical autonomy.

This paper addresses the emergence of green building rating systems. Industry-run non profits responsible for their development are still revising these systems while rival systems continue to emerge. The United Kingdom’s BREEAM standard has prompted other systems including the American LEED program. As federal and municipal level agencies adopt these rating systems for both public and privately-funded development projects, new legal issues will arise. Green building is a key element for future sustainable development that permits economic growth while preserving environmental standards. The new frontier in this area will be in legal challenges to these practices which go beyond the issues faced in traditional building projects. Korea can learn from these rating system and develop its system to match international standard for green building.