• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.75-98
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• 2017

This paper aims to estimate the social discount rate (SDR) rather than dig into its theoretical foundation. As SDRs can be derived by investigating both the rate of return on investment and the social time preference rate, we estimate the marginal productivity of both private and public capital and the time preference rate based on the Euler equation. In order to provide a single representative SDR, the weighted averages of the marginal productivity and time preference rate, whose weights are determined by the flow of funds data reflecting the social demand of funds, are presented. Based on the empirical results, we argue that the marginal productivity of private capital stands in the middle of the 3% range while that of public capital varies from 4.5% to 8.6%, with the time preference rate showing a decreasing trend from 3.2% in the early 2000s to 1.2% by around 2030. The single representative SDR or the weighted SDR is estimated to be approximately 3.0~4.5% and expected to continue its downward trend for the foreseeable future.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.71-92
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• 2013

Unlike general public investment projects, when it comes to environmental public investment projects, there is a gap between those who pay the costs, and those who receive the benefits. This is because of the long term nature of environmental investments, which entails that the majority of the costs are paid by the current generation, while the benefits are reaped by future generations. Because of this, when the social discount rate is set at a standard, singular rate, an issue of relative underestimation of the benefits reaped by future generations may occur during the analytic process. This paper begins with the recognition of this problem, and attempts to estimate a suitable social discount rate that can be applied to environmental investment projects. Taking into account recent economic situations, the social discount rate is currently being estimated at between 2.9 ~ 4.9%. Also, this paper used preliminary feasibility studies that took place so far, to analyze the standard pattern of benefit generation. This revealed that alterations in social discount rates can bring significant changes in economic feasibility test results. Simulation results showed that roughly 6% of B/C ratios could be increased by 1%p. resulting in a decrease in social discount rates. Also if we use hyperbolic discount rates, instead of using the current singular rate, there would be a meaningful increase in the benefits for the future generation.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.85-107
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• 2015

This study analyzes the effect of applying hyperbolic social discount rate onto the results of benefit-cost analysis of environmental public investment projects in Korea. In order to check the application possibility to the actual feasibility study, the discount factors generated by hyperbolic function, rather than traditional exponential one, would be applied to the benefit and cost data from the pre-feasibility studies which peformed for environmental public investment projects. The results of this study shows that using hyperbolic social discount rate is effective for enhancing test results, only under the condition of which the full expansion of the time periods of analysis is satisfied. According to the simulation results of this study, to achieve higher benefit/cost ratio by using hyperbolic social discount rate, the period should be increased up to 120 to 150 years at least.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.280-286
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• 1992

When the social cost-benefit analysis is applied for analyzing the public forestry investment, the choice of discount rate to be used in analysis is critical. In this paper, the social discount rate discussed in the public economics was introduced and the social time preference rate as a measure of that was estimated for Korea. The component parameters of the model used are : the elasticity of social marginal utility of consumption and the growth rate of real consumption. The results for the social time preference rate and the elasticity of social marginal utility of consumption are 6.2% and -1.38, respectively, which are plausible and thus can be used as a useful basis in establishing rational resource allocation policies.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-20
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• 2013

Social commerce has been gaining explosive popularity, with typical examples of the model such as Groupon and Level Up. Both local business owners and consumers can benefit from this new e-commerce model. Local business owners have a chance to access potential customers and promote their products in a way that could not have otherwise been easily possible, and consumers can enjoy discounted offerings. However, questions have been increasingly raised about the value and future of the social commerce model. A recent survey shows that about a third of 324 business owners who ran a daily-deal promotion in Groupon went behind. Furthermore, more than half of the surveyed merchants did not express enthusiasm about running the promotion again. The same goes for the case in Korea, where more than half of the surveyed clients reported no significant change or even decrease in profits compared to before the use of social commerce model. Why do local business owners fail to exploit the benefits from the promotions and advertisements through the social commerce model and to make profits? Without answering this question, the model would fall under suspicion and even its sustainability might be challenged. This study aims to look into problems in the current social commerce transactions and provide implications for the social commerce model, so that the model would get a foothold for next growth. Drawing on justice theory, this study develops theoretical arguments for the effects of transaction characteristics on consumers' distributive justice and purchase intention in the social commerce. Specifically, this study focuses on two characteristics of social commerce transactions-the discount rate and the purchase rate of products-and investigates their effects on consumers' perception of distributive justice for discounted transactions in the social commerce and their perception of distributive justice for regular-priced transactions. This study also examines the relationship between distributive justice and purchase intention. We conducted an online experiment and gathered data from 115 participants to test the hypotheses. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of nine manipulated scenarios of social commerce transactions, which were generated based on the combination of three levels of purchase rate (high, medium, and low) and three levels of discount rate (high, medium, and low). We conducted MANOVA and post-hoc ANOVA to test hypotheses about the relationships between the transaction characteristics (purchase rate and discount rate) and distributive justice for each of the discounted transaction and the regular-priced transaction. We also employed a PLS analysis to test relations between distributive justice and purchase intentions. Analysis results show that a higher discount rate increases distributive justice for the discounted transaction but decreases distributive justice for the regular-priced transaction. This, coupled with the result that distributive justice for each type of transaction has a positive effect on the corresponding purchase intention, implies that a large discount in the social commerce may be helpful for attracting consumers, but harmful to the business after the promotion. However, further examination reveals curvilinear effects of the discount rate on both types of distributive justice. Specifically, we find distributive justice for the discounted transaction increases concavely as the discount rate increases while distributive justice for the regular-priced transaction decreases concavely with the dscount rate. This implies that there exists an appropriate discount rate which could promote the discounted transaction while not hurting future business of regular-priced transactions. Next, the purchase rate is found to be a critical factor that facilitates the regular-priced transaction. It has a convexly positive influence on distributive justice for the transaction. Therefore, an increase of the rate beyond some threshold would lead to a substantial level of distributive justice for the regular-priced transaction, threrby boosting future transactions. This implies that social commerce firms and sellers should employ various non-price stimuli to promote the purchase rate. Finally, we find no significant relationship between the purchase rate and distributive justice for the discounted transaction. Based on the above results, we provide several implications with future research directions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.30-42
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• 2015

This study examined: 1) the effects of fashion luxury product price discounts in social commerce on perceived benefit and purchase intention, and 2) differences in such effects by social commerce trust, brand and design preferences for luxury products as well as social commerce and online luxury product purchase experiences. Three discount rates representing high, mid, and low for a luxury product sold in social commerce were manipulated and tested on female consumers and 486 online responses were analyzed. The results revealed that the price discount affected perceived benefit but did not affect purchase intention. Benefits were highly perceived at high and mid discount rates compared to the low rate. Social commerce trust, brand preference, and design preference affected perceived benefit and purchase intention, but the interaction effect with price discount was observed only in the design preference to perceived benefit. The purchase experience of online luxury products also affected purchase intention. Implications from the results were also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

A study on estimation of the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) was conducted for the Korean onshore wind farms. The LCOE was estimated on the basis of the actual wind farm data from Data Analysis, Retrieval Transfer system (DART) run by Financial Supervisory Service. Recently, social discount rate of Korea dropped from 5.5% to 4.5%, which was taken into account for this study. The onshore wind farms studied accounted for 42% of all the onshore wind farms of South Korea. Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operation Expenditure (OpEx) were calculated from the actual data, while Capacity Factors (CFs) were obtained from the wind farms of five provinces. Their distributions were estimated using Maximum Likelihood Estimation method, and then Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) was performed for estimating LCOE, Levelized Fixed Cost (LFC), and Levelized Variable Cost (LVC). As a result, the LCOEs at the two discount rates, 4.5 and 5.5%, were 142 and 152 $/MWh, respectively, which were lower than that of financially viable onshore wind project of Korea. The 1% drop of social discount rate was estimated to result in a 10 $/MWh decrease in LCOE and a 4 $/MWh in LFC, which can be an advantage for wind project investors.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.291-306
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of social commerce restaurant products by college students according to demographic characteristics and eating out behavior. The questionnaire for the survey was distributed to 450 college students, who have experiences of purchasing a restaurant product on social commerce, with 286 responses used for analysis. From the result, college students frequently use smart phones and SNS for making such purchases. While the awareness of social commerce was high, they sometimes visited the websites and purchased products. The awareness and purchase experience of Coupang and Ticket Monster turned out to be the highest. The most frequently purchased product was restaurant discount coupons, followed by fashion/accessories, movie or concert tickets, food products, and beauty shop discount coupons. The discount rate was mostly 30 to 40% on average. The most significantly considered matter in purchasing products and services was product quality, followed by discount rate and consumer review. The respondents ate out at least 3 to 5 times a week, spent $100,000{\leq}200,000$ won, and were generally satisfied with the restaurant products from social commerce sites. The main satisfaction reason was price, whereas the dissatisfaction reason was false and puffy advertising. Service quality improvement and variety of category were the most necessary factors for improvement. Among the demographic characteristics, there was a difference in purchase expenditure of social commerce restaurant products, as well as purpose, companion, time used and word-of-mouth experience according to gender. According to grade, there was a difference in purchase expenditure, companion, area of use and impulsive purchase. Among the eating out behavior, there was a difference in purpose, companion and word-of-mouth experience according to the eating out frequency. Meanwhile, there was a difference in purchase expenditure, companion, time used, word-of-mouth experience and tool according to the eating out cost.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2194-2210
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• 2018

In the era of big data, consumers capture more and more economic surplus yet the seed of distrust also grows with the fast-spreading of social commerce, this paper began with the idea that product types may determine the degree of consumers' distrust even when identical discounts are offered for those products on Chinese social commerce websites. We also attempted to determine if distrust negatively affected consumers' purchase attitudes. 20 representative products that are commonly sold on social commerce websites in China were chosen to examine the relationships among product types, discount rates, distrust levels, and purchase attitudes. Inductive interview was used to collect the data as well as consumers' perceptions of the relationships. Data analysis results suggested that consumers like deep discounts, but their distrust levels increase along with the discount rates, however, the levels of increasing distrust vary according to product types. High, medium, and low discount rate categorizations were made and three propositions were suggested. This paper will contribute to the body of knowledge on online social commerce market and provide valuable implications for e-retailers and general consumers in online social commerce websites in China.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.195-203
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• 2018

With the explosion of SNS(social network services) users, the social commerce market has emerged as a new consumer market, and will continue to grow in recent years. Despite the market environment, however, studies are lacking as to the causes of frustration that are hurting social commerce activation. This study is based on the 'Hezbollah' 2 Factor Theory and is a study of social commerce users' satisfaction and frustration factors. For this purpose, social commerce site characteristics and user characteristics were first derived from interviews and literature reviews to confirm their relationship to satisfaction and dissatisfied products. The results showed that the price discount rate, diversity, regional infrastructure, and e-commerce familiarity resulted in the impact on the definition of satisfaction, while the price discount rate, interoperability and innovation resulted in the definition of unsatisfactory goods. It also showed that satisfaction affects the definition of intended use. In particular, the price discount rate was found to be the only factor affecting the definition of unsatisfactory as well as affecting the definition of satisfaction.