• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.3-30
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• 1991

This paper examines Korea's exports of manufactures to the United States, Japan, and other OECD member countries in the 1974-89 period, focusing on the market share in the trade partners' imports. It decomposes the growth of exports into various effects, following the "constant-market-shares" analysis. For this purpose, the entire period is divided into three subperiods: 1974-78, 1978-83, and 1983-89. The paper also estimates a regression model of the market share determination, using the data of Korea's market share in U.S. imports. In the three subperiods under study, Korea's exports grew at different paces for varied reasons. The average annual growth rate was 28 %, 11 %, and 21 %, respectively. A large drop in the "competitiveness effect", that is, in the market-share growth rate, was mainly responsible for the decline in the export growth rate. The largest drop in the competitiveness effect was found in the light manufactures exports in the second period. The market share did not regain the rapid growth momentum. The main reason for the rise in export growth rate in the last subperiod was the "market-size effect"-a rise in the growth rate of the trade partners' imports. According to the regression results, high intensities in physical and human capital tended to lower the Korean manufacturing industries' market shares in the United States. This negative correlation was stronger in the case of human capital intensity, suggesting that Korea is relatively poorer in human capital endowment than in physical capital endowment when compared to the United States. This negative correlation between the market share and each of the two intensities became weaker overtime. This may be interpreted as the consequence of both physical and human capital accumulation which were faster than the labor force growth. Depreciation of the Japanese yen was estimated to have a negative influence on the Korean manufacturing industries' market share in the United States, and this negative influence became stronger each year in the 1980s. This seems to reflect the intensifying competition between the two countries' exports in U.S. import markets. The Heavy and Chemical Industry Policy of the 1970s, which promoted a number of selected industries by providing them with various incentives and inevitably discriminated against the rest of the industries, was estimated to have had strong negative effects on the export performance of the light manufacturing industries. This finding and the largest decline in the "competitiveness effect" -found in the light manufactures exports in the 1978-83 period-indicate that the Heavy and Chemical Industry Policy was mainly accountable for the drop in the export growth rate during the period. On the other hand, the rise in export growth rate during the subsequent subperiod was greatly impacted by the large scale exchange rate realignments of major currencies, especially by the appreciation of the Japanese yen, and other changes in international economic conditions.