Busan Development Institute

This study investigates the impact of retirement preparation on life satisfaction and explores whether the perception of external support for older adults mediates this relationship.In particular, by comparing the baby boomer generation in their 60s with the older generation in their 70s, the study aims to propose policy measures that reflect generational characteristics to enhance quality of life in an aging society.A total of 501 adults aged between 60 and 79 participated in this study, with data collected through quota sampling based on gender, age, and residential population ratios.Mediating effects were analyzed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS.The results indicate that higher levels of retirement preparation are associated with lower perceptions of external support, while perceptions of external support positively influence life satisfaction.Furthermore, even when controlling for the mediating variable, retirement preparation continued to exhibit a significant positive effect on life satisfaction.Notably, among baby boomers in their 60s, the mediating role of external support perception was more pronounced, suggesting that actively leveraging personal resources through retirement preparation, coupled with a positive perception of external support, is a critical strategy for improving life satisfaction in this cohort.These findings underscore the importance of an integrated approach to retirement preparation and external support perception in enhancing the quality of life for older adults in a rapidly aging society.Moreover, the study highlights the need for tailored welfare policies that address generational characteristics, offering practical implications for policy development.

Internationalization of cities has been reportedly discussed to be important for sustainable urban development. World Urban Forum (WUF) has been held in every two years to discuss such contemporary urban agendas as local communities, economy, environment and culture by UN Habitat. This article aims to review the validity and necessity of Busan’s hosting plans for 13th WUF and propose desirable strategies and action plans. In doing so, it investigates agendas of the first to 11th WUF meeting and analyzes urban policy tasks, which global cities confront, from the perspective of the sustainable development goals, with methods of qualitative content analysis, focused-group interview, and word cloud analysis. From the analyses, this study demonstrates desirable and rational strategies to host and hold 13th WUF, particularly in connection with 2030 Busan World Expo, and more importantly announce internationalization strategies of cities towrad sustainable urban future.

Fifteen airborne particulate matter-bound metals were analyzed at 14 sites in four large cities (Seoul, Incheon, Busan, Daegu) in South Korea, between August 2013 and June 2017. Among the seven sources resolved by positive matrix factorization, soil dust and marine aerosol accounted for the largest and second largest portions in the three cities; however, in Seoul, soil dust and traffic occupied the largest and the second largest, respectively. Non-carcinogenic risk assessed by inhalation of eight metals (Cd, Co, Ni, Pb, As, Al, Mn, and V) was greater than the hazard index (HI) of 1 at four sites located at or near the industrial complexes. Cumulative incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) due to exposure to five metals (Cd, Co, Ni, Pb, and As) exceeded the 10−6 cancer benchmark at 14 sites and 10−5 at six sites, which includes four sites with HI greater than 1. The largest contributor to ILCR was coal combustion in Seoul, Incheon, and Daegu, and industry sources in Busan. Moreover, industry sources were the largest contributors to non-carcinogenic risk in Seoul, Busan, and Daegu, and soil dust was in Incheon. Incheon had the highest HI in spring because of the higher contribution of soil dust sources than in other seasons. The higher ILCR in Incheon in spring and winter and higher ILCR and HI in Daegu in autumn were mainly due to the influence of industry or coal combustion sources. Statistically significant differences in the ILCR and HI values among the sampling sites in Busan and Daegu resulted from the higher contribution of industry sources at a certain site in the respective city.

ABSTRACT Shipping companies need a huge amount of external funds to purchase ships, and financing choices have a decisive effect on a firm’s valuation. Capital structure decisions are of great importance for maximizing corporate value which is the primary goal of financial management. Therefore, this study investigates the differences of capital structure decisions in Korean and Greek shipping companies using a sample of 60 Korean and 32 Greek shipping companies in terms of shipping business models: an operator model and an owner model. The result shows that Korean and Greek shipping companies follow the pecking order theory, and the two countries indicate different results of capital structure regressions including supply and demand factors with their unique shipping business models.

As various disasters and safety accidents frequently occur, people's expectations regarding safety management are gradually increasing. The importance of disaster and safety management is especially magnified due to successive accidents. These include fires in complex buildings and hospitals, inversion of cranes, paralysis of a communication network by a fire in the KT underground cable tunnel, rupture of pipelines in district heating systems, derailment of a KTX train, etc. To strengthen the generalization and mediation functions for disaster management and improve the disaster management system, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety introduced the safety audit and inspection system. This study suggests plans for the establishment and improvement of the system in the early part of its implementation. This includes a theoretical discussion on the safety audit and inspection, an investigation of the current organization in Wide-Area Units of the Local Government, and drawing plans for the establishment and improvement of the system. As a result, efficient planning for the safety audit and inspection, expansion of manpower, enhancement of the organization's status, and establishment of a system for the safety audit and inspection were suggested.

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of housing price on the divorce rate in South Korea using a fixed effects model and dynamic panel data. There is currently a lack of consensus in the literature regarding the effect of house price on divorce. We simultaneously consider both house price and rental cost to distinguish a positive and negative effect of housing price. Using a cross-regional dataset of 15 provinces in South Korea from 1990 to 2013, we show that the wealth effect of house price changes on divorce rates is different from the effect of rental cost. All regression results indicate positive and statistically significant wealth effects of house price, but negative effects of the rental price changes on divorce rates.

By analysing the Dynamic Conditional Correlations (DCC) of the daily stock returns of four OECD countries with that of the US for the period 2006–2010, we could find a process of increasing correlations (contagion) in the first phase of the US financial crisis and an additional increase of correlations (herding) during the second phase of the US financial crisis for the UK, Australia and Switzerland. However, the impact of the US financial crisis on Japan was limited to the increase in correlation volatilities in the first phase. We also propose a new approach (DCC Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic model with Exogenous variables (DCCX-MGARCH)) that allows simultaneous estimation of the DCC and their determinants, which can be used to identify channels of contagion. It is shown that an increase in VIX stock market index increases conditional correlations but an increase in the TED spread and relative stock market capitalization decrease conditional correlations of stock returns between four OECD countries and the US.

Despite rapid technological advancement it has been very difficult for service providers to develop killer applications in mobile communication markets. The objective of this study is to analyse the influential factors on continuous use intention for 3G mobile video phone services. The results showed that attitude, subjective norm, and video phone function exert a significant influence on continuous use intention for video phone services and video phone function and video phone call quality exert influence on user attitude. This research will provide useful implications for staff and researchers who are building two-way service based profit models, including mobile video phone services.