Department of Food and Resource Economics

The Food and Resource Economics program is a study of social science in Applied Economics which deals with issues related to the development and applied problems of food and resources. The studies approach the natural resources and environmental management issues related to food production from economic problems; such as production, consumption, marketing, policy, trade, and finance to economic development from the economic perspective of rational use of resources.

This course is designed to research food distribution, natural resources and the environment/environments, production management and agribusiness, finance and consumer economy, international trade and future trade, welfare and an information economy which is based on economics, business administration, statistics, and management information systems. The importance of food resource economics has become greater nowadays, as food self-sufficiency has declined and global food security and resource exhaustion has become important agendas for international organizations such as WTO, FAO, and APEC.  

Coordination

Professor Han Doo Bong of Korea University has been working as a coordinator of the Korean consortium for the EKAFREE program since 2014, and has demonstrated outstanding administrative capacity and research capabilities in the areas of agricultural, food, and resources economics. In 2017, he served as President of the Korea Agricultural Economics Association. From 2011 to 2017, he served as Director for the “Social Science Korea (SSK)” project of the Korea Research Foundation. He also has been working as Director of the “BK21 plus” project, an excellent graduate student development program since 2013. In 2015, a paper titled "Assessing Korean Consumers' Valuation for Domestic, Chinese, and US Rice: Importance of Country of Origin and Food Miles Information" (SSCI) was selected by the Korea Research Foundation for Basic Research Excellence. In the past 3 years, 19 papers have been published in Korean and overseas journals, including “A common factor of stochastic volatilities between oil and commodity prices” (Applied Economics, April 2017).

Korea University is a partner in the IMRD+ EKAFREE programme