Abstract | PDF (957 kilobytes)

No abstract is available for this article.

Abstract | PDF (4583 kilobytes)

This paper analyzes the sectoral transmission structure of inflation in Korea using monthly data from January 2001 to September 2025. We estimate a Bayesian VAR model with 14 variables, including crude oil prices, CPI components, the exchange rate, real activity, and the call rate, and apply the Diebold--Yilmaz connectedness framework to assess how price shocks originating in specific sectors are transmitted to others. The empirical results show that crude oil shocks exert strong spillover effects on domestic prices, with larger effects at medium and long-term horizons. Among domestic sectors, eating-out prices display relatively persistent outgoing connectedness, while personal services, agricultural/livestock/fisheries products, and other manufactured goods tend to receive sizable spillovers from other sectors. Sub-sample comparisons show that crude oil and exchange rate spillovers were more pronounced in the early 2000s, whereas eating-out prices and rent have become more important transmission channels in the recent period. These findings suggest that Korean inflation dynamics are shaped not only by aggregate price pressures but also by the origins and propagation paths of sector-specific shocks, highlighting the need for micro-level inflation monitoring based on sectoral price networks.

Abstract | PDF (1304 kilobytes)

This paper investigates the heterogeneous treatment effects of employment services in Korea, the National Employment Support Program. The empirical analysis reveals substantial heterogeneity in program effects. In particular, positive employment effects are salient among younger individuals, women, and those with relatively limited work experience. Furthermore, the analysis of optimal treatment assignment demonstrates that selectively targeting individuals yields efficiency gains relative to uniform service provision. Overall, the findings highlight the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach to employment services and provide empirical support for data-driven targeting based on heterogeneous treatment effects.

Abstract | PDF (159 kilobytes)

Despite sustained government efforts to support multicultural students in Korea, little empirical evidence exists on whether a multicultural background actually causes lower academic achievement. This paper applies the Double/Debiased Machine Learning (DML) framework of Chernozhukov et al. (2018) to three panel cohorts from the Korean Children and Youth Panel Survey 2010. Multiple machine learning methods—including Lasso, Ridge, Random Forest, Boosted Trees, and Neural Networks—flexibly control for socioeconomic and educational covariates, while Neyman-orthogonal score functions and cross-fitting ensure robustness to regularization bias and functional form misspecification. Our principal finding is that, after controlling for observed socioeconomic and educational covariates, there is no statistically robust evidence that multicultural background lowers academic achievement independently of these factors. For the Grade 1 and Grade 4 cohorts, the raw achievement gap is no longer statistically distinguishable from zero once covariates are accounted for. For the Grade 7 cohort, some specifications yield marginally significant negative effects, but these are not robust across learners or ensemble methods. These results suggest that the observed gap is driven by socioeconomic factors rather than multicultural status itself, calling for a reassessment of policies that target academic support exclusively at multicultural students.

Abstract | PDF (4350 kilobytes)

This study estimates the real natural rate of interest for Korea and the United States by incorporating post-COVID-19 macroeconomic changes, and evaluates the stance of monetary policy based on these estimates. To this end, we employ a semi-structural state-space model that incorporates time-varying volatility and pandemic-related supply shocks. The results show that the real natural rate has exhibited a long-run declining trend in both countries, while output gaps have experienced substantial negative adjustments during major shock episodes. In addition, policy rates in the post-pandemic period have been maintained above the long-run nominal natural rate, suggesting that monetary policy has been conducted in a restrictive stance. By accounting for the unprecedented macroeconomic fluctuations following the pandemic, this study provides a more consistent quantitative benchmark for assessing the stance of monetary policy.