Quantitative Analysis of the Structure and Behavior of Imports in Korea

There have been a number of studies and analysis designed to explain imports and exports disaggregated by commodities in many countries. These analyses, however, all concentrate on the trading patterns of industrial countries, and there has been very little of systematic analyses of the imports and exports by types of commodities for developing countries. There is, of course, an obvious reason for ignoring these countries, and that has to do with the availability, or rather paucity, of adequate data; it is widely known that the data on prices of disaggregated imports and exports are most difficult to obtain. The purpose of this paper is to study and analyze the behavior of the imports of Korea at disaggregated levels during the period 1965-1974. Data on imports at a disaggregated level have recently been made available in Korea for a seven-commodity breakdown. These seven categories cover some 90% of the total Korean imports.