• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.73-79
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• 2013

Purpose - This study examines the impact of oil price volatility on economic activities in Korea. The new millennium has seen a deregulation in the crude oil market, which invited immense capital inflow into Korea. It has also raised oil price levels and volatility. Drawing on the recent theoretical literature that emphasizes the role of volatility, this paper attends to the asymmetric changes in economic growth in response to the oil price movement. This study further examines several key macroeconomic variables, such as interest rate, production, and inflation. We come to the conclusion that oil price volatility can, in some part, explain the structural changes. Research design, data, and methodology - We use two methodological frameworks in this study. First, in regards to the oil price uncertainty, we use an Exponential-GARCH (Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity: EGARCH) model estimate to elucidate the asymmetric effect of oil price shock on the conditional oil price volatility. Second, along with the estimation of the conditional volatility by the EGARCH model, we use the estimates in a VECM (Vector Error Correction Model). The study thus examines the dynamic impacts of oil price volatility on industrial production, price levels, and monetary policy responses. We also approximate the monetary policy function by the yield of monetary stabilization bond. The data collected for the study ranges from 1990: M1 to 2013: M7. In the VECM analysis section, the time span is split into two sub-periods; one from 1990 to 1999, and another from 2000 to 2013, due to the U.S. CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) deregulation on the crude oil futures that became effective in 2000. This paper intends to probe the relationship between oil price uncertainty and macroeconomic variables since the structural change in the oil market became effective. Results and Conclusions - The dynamic impulse response functions obtained from the VECM show a prolonged dampening effect of oil price volatility shock on the industrial production across all sub-periods. We also find that inflation measured by CPI rises by one standard deviation shock in response to oil price uncertainty, and lasts for the ensuing period. In addition, the impulse response functions allude that South Korea practices an expansionary monetary policy in response to oil price shocks, which stems from oil price uncertainty. Moreover, a comparison of the results of the dynamic impulse response functions from the two sub-periods suggests that the dynamic relationships have strengthened since 2000. Specifically, the results are most drastic in terms of industrial production; the impact of oil price volatility shocks has more than doubled from the year 2000 onwards. These results again indicate that the relationships between crude oil price uncertainty and Korean macroeconomic activities have been strengthened since the year2000, which resulted in a structural change in the crude oil market due to the deregulation of the crude oil futures.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.49-67
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• 2006

This study examines whether won/dollar futures have price discovery function and volatility spillover effect or not, using intraday won/dollar futures prices, volumes, and spot rates for the interval from March 2, 2005 through May 30, 2005. Futures prices and spot rates are non-stationary, but there is the cointegration relationship between two time series. Futures returns, spot returns, and volumes are stationary. Asymmetric effects on volatility in futures returns and spot returns does not exist. Analytical results of mean equations of the BGARCH-EC (bivariate GARCH-error correction) model show that the increase of futures returns raise spot returns after 5 minutes, which implies that futures returns lead spot returns and won/dollar futures have price discovery function. In addition, the long-run equilibrium relationship between the two returns could help forecast spot returns. Analytical results of variance equations indicate that short-run innovations in the futures market positively affect the conditional variances of spot returns, that is, there is the volatility spillover effect in the won/dollar futures market. A dummy variable of volumes does not have an effect on two returns but influences significantly on two conditional variances.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.311-342
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• 2015

We evaluate two main rationales of massive policy intervention of Lee Administration in the Korean transportation fuel market: high market share of domestic refineries, perceived by the Administration as the result of high market concentration, and asymmetry in price adjustment, perceived as the result of collusion. Domestic refineries, huge in capacity and located at seaports, maintain international competitiveness in price. Considering market openness offering preferential treatment to importers, they set domestic prices competitively on the basis of MOPS prices. Yet, the price competitiveness of domestic refineries is so high that they are able to sustain high market share. We confirm that the Korean before-tax consumer prices of gasoline and diesel are lower than Japan's and the weighted averages of 27 EU countries by as much as 159KRW and 21KRW per liter in the case of gasoline and 170KRW and 63KRW in the case of diesel. Price asymmetry is caused by diverse economic and managerial reasons and, as FTC (2005) states, price asymmetry does not immediately imply exercise of market power or collusion. We analyzed price asymmetry in Korea, Japan and 14 EU countries, and found asymmetry in Korea and 11 EU countries in the case of gasoline and in Korea and 8 EU countries in the case of diesel.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.213-237
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• 2007

Discussions on regionalization of the world crude oil markets have provided important implications for the establishment of national energy policies. In particular, due to arbitrage trading, if these markets are regionalized, Korea who imports approximately 80% of the annual oil consumption from a single region may be faced with a crucial problem. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed regionalization of the world crude oil markets using causality analysis as well as cointegration method to consider temporal relationship and time lags. To analyze regionalization, we chose Dubai price for the Middle East market, Brent for the European, WTI for the U.S., and Tapis for the East Asian. For the case that long-run equilibrium existed between market prices, we used vector error correction model to analyze causal relationship, and for the case that equilibrium did not exist, we used Hsiao (1981)'s framework that can consider asymmetric time lags in the model for causality analysis. By the results of cointegration analysis, there did not exist long-run equilibrium among Dubai price and the other prices. However, we found the causal relationship among Dubai price and the other prices with one to four weeks time lags. Therefore, in effect, we could conclude that the world crude oil markets are unified supporting Adelman (1984)'s hypothesis.