Professor Yang Hyunjoo of School of Economics

Awarded Korean Economy Academic Research Award

Professor Yang Hyunjoo of the School of Economics was awarded the '2019 Korean Economy Academic Research Award,' sponsored by the Korean Economic Association, one of Korea's largest academic circles in the field of economics.

Since 2016, the Korean Economic Association has been offering its Korean Economy Academic Research Awards annually in order to elevate academic standards for economic research and motivate economists to conduct research on the Korean economy. Award winners are selected through judging processes by experts in various fields and based on recommended research papers through direct or indirect analysis of the Korean economy and published in Korean and international academic journals.

For his work, Professor Yang analyzed the relationship between family clan distribution in villages and public goods in the New Village Beautification Project practiced in Korea during the 1970s. His research findings were published in his paper titled 'Family Clans and Public Goods: Evidence from the New Village Beautification Project in South Korea.' His award has been given in recognition for his paper being published in one of the world's most acclaimed economic journals in the field of development economics, 'Journal of Development Economics,' in 2019. 

 This paper is an empirical analysis of the determinants of social capital and public good production in Korean agricultural villages during the 1970s. Based on Korea's much diversified peculiars, shown in family clan diversity across different villages, such as 'Single-clan Village' or 'Multiple-clan Village,' Professor Yang analyzed the effect of group heterogeneity on the production of public goods. For this study, he personally extracted and utilized data on the distribution of family clans in villages during the 1930s, as well as data on production of public goods and spatial geography for villages in the 1970s. The findings from his empirical analysis showed that, in North Gyeongsang Province, production of public goods in a village varied in accordance to family clan distribution: the production in Single-clan Villages or Multiple-clan Villages was not as high as for those of villages where two large-sized family clans cohabitated. Unlike previous research that showed that disparity of a group and public good production had a linear relationship, this study identified an inverted U-shaped non-linear relationship.

Professor Yang's contribution is particularly significant in that he focused on the 1970s and an era when Korea was making remarkable economic development, which, despite interest among Korean and international researchers, has remained insufficiently covered due to the lack of microscopic data. From this aspect, this paper is expected to make a great contribution toward various other academic fields, including economic development, development economics, public economics, and economic history.

The awards ceremony was held at Seoul National University Asia Center on August 13.