To submit a paper to the following conferences, one has to be (or become) a lifetime KAEA member or has paid his/her annual membership dues for 2006 and 2007. When you submit your paper, please indicate clearly the name of the conference you are submitting to.

Submission deadline: March 7, 2007.

Submit your completed papers with an abstract of 200-400 words, including JEL code, by e-mail to Vice President Sunwoong Kim (kim@uwm.edu). Only completed papers will be considered. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the referees selected by both the KIF and the KAEA.

Submission deadline: March 31, 2007.

The KAEA invites papers for the 2007 GRI-KAEA joint conference to be held on June 1, 2007. GRI (Gyeonggi Research Institute), located in Suwon, is the research arm for the Gyeonggi Province. The theme of the conference is "Gyeonggi-Do in the World Economy." The conference seeks research papers with policy emphasis in the area of Gyeonggi-Do in the globalized economy, regional/urban development strategy, and any other policy issues (e.g., regulatory, international trade, FTA etc.) faced with the provincial government. The conference participants are expected to take part in the tour of the Province organized by GRI on Saturday, June 2. Each paper selected for presentation will receive travel support of 3,500,000 Korean won. In addition, local accommodation will be provided for conference participants for the duration of two nights and three days.

Submission: Submit your completed paper or extended abstract of more than 600 words by e-mail to Vice President Sunwoong Kim (kim@uwm.edu). Please contact him as soon as possible if you intend to submit a paper . Submitted papers will be reviewed by the referees selected by both the GRI and the KAEA.

Submission deadline: April 15, 2007.

Professor Heejoon Kang, Business Economics and Public Policy, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 47405; (812) 855-9219, Fax: (812) 855-3354; kang@indiana.edu.

Submitted papers will be blind-reviewed by the referees. Please indicate whether you would be willing to serve as a discussant if your paper is accepted for presentation.

Submission deadline: February 28, 2007.

Submission: Submit your completed paper with an abstract of 200-400 words, including the JEL code, by e-mail to Vice President Sunwoong Kim (kim@uwm.edu). Only completed papers will be considered.

Three papers will be selected for the conference and the selected paper presenters will receive financial support of around $6,000 each. Each paper presenter will be requested to contribute $1,000 to KAEA upon receiving the $6,000 from the Bank of Korea. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the referees selected by both the BOK and the KAEA.

Submission deadline: April 30, 2007

Submission: Submit your completed paper with an abstract of 200-400 words, including the JEL code, by e-mail to Vice President Sunwoong Kim (kim@uwm.edu). Only completed papers will be considered. Submitted papers will be reviewed by the referees selected by both the KDI and the KAEA.

Submission Deadline: April 30, 2007

Guidelines for Paper Submission: Abstract of 200-400 words (and a completed paper if available) should be submitted by e-mail only to Sunghyun.kim@tufts.edu.

Submission deadline: April 30, 2007

Academic sessions at the 2007 Chicago ASSA meeting

The KAEA held three academic sessions at the 2007 ASSA meeting in Chicago (Jan 5-7). The topic of the joint session with AEA was "North Korean economy at a crossroads." Participants discussed economic issues such as inflation, trade balance, and direct investment in North Korea as well as humanitarian aid issues. The session was quite successful with more than 45 people attending. Following last year's meeting, we allocated the remaining two sessions to specific fields (not necessarily related to the Korean economy). This year, the topics were empirical labor economics and macroeconomics related to government policies, financial markets and economic fluctuations. Each session was composed of four top frontier papers in the field, where the selected presenters are top junior Korean economists who are not yet actively participating in the KAEA activities. Each session attracted approximately 30-40 people including a number of non-Koreans who are not connected to the KAEA.

Average attendance at this year's conference was better than at last year's but we still need to increase the number of attendants which is the criteria used by the ASSA board to evaluate the quality of the academic session and in deciding whether to remove some sessions from the affiliated societies at the annual meeting. We encourage our members to participate in the academic sessions at the meeting in order to maintain the three sessions that we currently have been allotted.

2007 Annual Business Meeting

The 2007 Annual Meeting was held on January 6, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago. President Suk Hi Kim reported the activities of the KAEA in 2006, including the joint conferences with the KEA, BOK, KDI and KIF, and KAEA sponsoring sessions at the SEA annual meetings. President Kim listed the following three as the major achievements during his presidency: (1) addition of 24 lifetime members, (2) establishment of the travel support fund for Korean Ph. D. candidates, and (3) documentation of the nomination procedure and selection criteria for both the Young Scholar Award and Maekyung-KAEA Economists Award. Secretary General Sunghyun Kim reported the KAEA activities related to the ASSA while Treasurer Bang Nam Jeon made the KAEA financial report for the 2006 year term.

Before the business meeting, Professor Jisoon Lee of Seoul National University, the Chair of the Organizing Committee of the 2006 KEA-KAEA International Conference, read the speech prepared by Dr. Un-Chan Chung, the KEA President. President Chung presented his view on the current economic issues in Korea (see the text of his talk by clicking on Un-ChanChung). Discussions on the current economic issues in Korea were continued the following day in the Panel Discussion on Korean Economy where Dr. Jung Taik Hyun (President of the KDI; Paper by Jung Taik Hyun), Dr. Myung-Kee Kim (Deputy General Director of the IMER, Bank of Korea) and Dr. Dosoung Choi (President, Korea Securities Research Institute) presented their views.

This year is the second year that the banquet dinner was held at the headquarter hotel, Hyatt Regency Hotel, instead of having the annual dinner at a Korean restaurant as in the past. Approximately 90 members and their guests showed up for the annual banquet. The dinner speaker was Dr. James Lister, Korea Economic Institute of America, who reported the KEI activities to the KAEA members.

Maekyung-KAEA Forum

The inaugural Maekyung-KAEA forum was held on January 4th at the Hyatt Regency Chicago Hotel. This forum is sponsored by the Maeil Business Newspaper and is an open forum with focus on contemporary economic issues in the world economy. This year's topic was on the prospects of the US economy and its impact on Korea: monetary, exchange rate and trade policies. We had three presenters this year, Jaewoo Lee (IMF), Jinill Kim (FRB) and Sungjoon Cho (Chicago-Kent Law School, Illinois Institute of Technology). Newspaper article on this forum can be found at MaeKyung.

Professors Jay Pil Choi (Michigan State), Jinyong Hahn (UCLA) and Kwangsoo Cheong (Johns Hopkins) served as this year's selection committee members for KAEA awards.

Young Scholar Award
The 2006 Young Scholar Award with a $2,000 cash prize was awarded to Donghoon Lee at New York University. This annual award is to recognize young scholars' academic accomplishments and to foster scholarship in economics. Donghoon Lee has published several papers related to labor economics in top journals such as Econometrica and International Economic Review (see Vita).

Maekyung-KAEA Economist Award
This is the second year that we continue the Maekyung-KAEA Economist Award, sponsored by the Maekyung Business Newspaper, which is given to a KAEA member who has made a significant contribution to the academic research related to the Korean economy. This year, Professor Kee Ho Chung (Vita) at the SUNY-Buffalo received this award with a $2,000 cash prize. Representing Maekyung, Washington Chief Kyungho Yoon presented the award at the annual meeting.

Service Award
There were three service awards for outgoing EC members for their devoted service in 2006: The recipients of the service awards were President Suk Hi Kim, Vice President Kang Hoon Park and Treasurer Bang Nam Jeon.

The annual meeting of the Southern Economic Association will be held in New Orleans, LA, at the New Orleans Marriott, November 19-21, 2007 (Monday to Wednesday). KAEA has scheduled two sessions. KAEA members who are interested in presenting a paper or in discussing a paper are requested to inform Professor Semoon Chang (schang@usouthal.edu) of their intentions with paper topic by no later than March 1, 2007. Papers presented at the SEA sessions are usually related to Korea, North Korea, or the East Asian region although general topics are also considered. There are no submission fees. However, participants in any KAEA-sponsored events must have paid membership dues for the current year and the last year, or a lifetime membership.

Professor Semoon Chang asks:

In December 2006, the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) initiated an Academic Paper Series-a program to generate monthly academic papers followed by a public discussion of topical issues related to the Korean Peninsula. As a result of this initiative, KEI has commissioned three papers and published two, "Kim Jong-il: Strategy and Psychology" by Professor Michael Mazarr and "Restructuring the U.S. Military Presence in Korea: Implications for Korean Security and the U.S.-ROK Alliance" by Professor Terence Roehrig.

KEI intends to commission nine to ten papers in 2007 on original subjects of current interest to serious Korea watchers. Papers must be written exclusively for KEI and must not have appeared in publication. Papers should be approximately 4,000 - 5,000 words in length. KEI will edit and distribute the finished paper as a KEI Academic Paper to over 2,000 government officials, think tank experts, and scholars around the United States and the world. KEI will also collate and publish all of the KEI Academic Papers in a single volume on an annual basis.

Authors of papers selected by KEI for the KEI Academic Paper Series will receive an honorarium of $2000. KEI will arrange a mutually convenient date for authors to participate in a discussion with Korea analysts, government officials, and journalists of their selected paper at KEI conference facilities in Washington, DC, preferably during the month KEI publishes the paper. KEI will provide travel and accommodation expenses for the discussion program.

Interested authors should submit the following information by January 26, 2007:

KEI will announce the chosen paper topics by February 1, 2007, with the expectation that the chosen authors will complete their first draft and transmit it to KEI by March 5, 2007.

After scheduling the March through June 2007 KEI Academic Papers, KEI will repeat the call for Academic Papers later in the year in June 2007 for the remainder of the year.

Please submit proposals to Scott Rembrandt, KEI Director of Academic Affairs at SR@keia.org . Authors will be notified as quickly as possible once KEI selects their proposed topic.

Membership Due
The number of due-paying members is critically important for the continued success of KAEA and ongoing recognition from ASSA. As the smallest organization within the ASSA, we rely on your support. Please note that those who wish to participate in any KAEA-sponsored events must pay membership dues for the current year and the last year (or become a lifetime member when applying for participation) to qualify.

Please send your membership due to KAEA treasurer:

Lifetime Membership:$ 200
Annual Membership: $ 20 (regular), $ 5 (student)

Members who paid dues are posted on the Membership site.

Member News
News about KAEA members are posted at Member News site. Please send any news that you want to share to Sunghyun Kim (Secretary General) sunghyun.kim@tufts.edu.