Land Use Regulations and Efficiency of Seoul's Economy

To revitalize Seoul's economy it is necessary for the Korean government to restructure various systems and facilities to make them convenient for businesses. Numerous land use regulations currently retard not only business activities of domestic firms but also foreign direct investments in Korea, most of which are interested in locating their businesses in the Capital Region. This paper concerns mainly three types of land use regulations affecting business activities in the Capital Region: zoning plans, the Capital Region Concentration Control Policy and the Greenbelt. It is recommended to make the zoning plans more flexible and to adopt the spatial pollution charge and the performance zoning system rather than the traditional zoning plans to provide strong incentives for firms to abate the pollution. The Capital Region Concentration Control Policy made firms' optimal locations impossible without contributing to the containment of population and economic concentration in the Capital Region. The paper argu...