Input 2021.02.05 23:02 | Revision 2021.02.05 23:06
On the same day, the Governor said on Facebook, “To prevent the devastation of the alley and the polarization of sales, we give incentives when using local currency so that some of the sales flow to the alley,” he said. “But, as scholars did research, there was no effect of increasing employment. It is said that sales of the travel and accommodation business are not increasing.”
Earlier on this day, at the’Economics Joint Academic Research Contest’ hosted by the Korean Economic Association, Jo Se-yeon announced with the intention that “Local currency can only be used locally, so it is not effective in increasing sales of lodging and travel businesses.” In addition, he said, “If a local government introduces local currency, the local government’s consumers have the effect of reducing consumption in neighboring regions, resulting in a decrease in sales of small businesses in neighboring regions.” It is pointed out that the introduction of local currency produces a’zero-sum game of sales between local governments’. Kang Chang-hee, a professor of economics at Chung-Ang University, also compared the trend of the number of employed by region before and after issuance of local currency, and said, “There is no evidence that local currency caused employment.”
Regarding this, the Governor said, “The purpose of local currency is to prevent polarization of sales, but not to increase sales in the employment and travel accommodation business,” he said. “The majority of neighborhood restaurants, chicken stores, pubs, butchers, fisheries, vegetable stores, side dish stores, and rice cake shops “Isn’t it effective for small business owners to gain sales?”
Governor Lee said, “Rather than paying the grant in cash, it is helpful to increase the sales of small and medium-sized business people in the alley commercial area by looking at simple statistics that can not be used at large retail stores such as department stores and can only be used by local small businesses. It’s a beginner’s common sense.”
He said, “It would be better to simply say,’I don’t want the sales to go to a large distribution company to go to a small business in the neighborhood’ rather than exhausting the research skills that are wasteful to make a cause.”
Governor Lee previously criticized Cho Se-yeon, who raised the theory of the use of local currency. In September of last year, Se-yeon Jo published a research report stating that’local currency is counterproductive’, the governor said, “If a national research institute defends the interests of a specific group and intervenes in politics, it is neither a scholar nor research to be protected, and must be liquidated. It’s just the right thing to do.”
Subsequently, in December of the same year, citing the contents of the policy data of the Regional Administration Research Institute under the Ministry of Public Administration and Security that’local currency created added value that exceeded the input budget and had a considerable effect of supporting small business owners.’ Even though it is large, conservative media and some politicians mobilized a state-run research institute (Cho Se-yeon) to distort the truth,” he argued.
