• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.1-17
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• 2020

Purpose - Since China has been South Korea's biggest export destination, uncertainty shocks originating from it would influence South Korea's exports. This paper evaluates the effects of China's economic policy uncertainty on Korea's exports to explore the transmission channels. Design/methodology - Incorporating endogeneities and nonlinearities, this study employs a quarterly time-varying parameters vector autoregressive model to investigate the relationships between China's economic policy uncertainty and Korea's exports, where the overparameterization due to time-varying specifications is overcome by a novel stochastic model specification search framework. According to previous theoretical studies, this paper assesses two channels, demand shock channel and exchange rate channel, through which foreign uncertainty affects Korea's exports. This paper identifies the primary drivers of Korea's aggregate exports and analyzes the rationales for the time-variant impacts of China's economic policy uncertainty on Korea's exports to China. Findings - Our empirical results reveal that Korea's aggregate exports are less responsive to China's economic policy uncertainty shocks and significantly move together with global demand. In contrast, its bilateral exports to China are highly responsive in a negative and time-variant way. Moreover, Chinese investment is an important channel through which China's economic policy uncertainty affects Korea's exports to China after 2010. Further, the time-variant effects of China's economic policy uncertainty on Korea's exports to China are related to changes in China's foreign trade policies, global economic conditions, and China's degree of economic freedom. Originality/value - Few previous studies touch the effects of external uncertainty shocks on South Korea's exports. This paper attempts to fill this gap and explicitly investigate the impacts of China's economic policy uncertainty on Korea's exports from a time-varying perspective. As Korea is an export-oriented economy, this study provides insights for the Korean government to understand the transmissions of external uncertainty better.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.146-163
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper examines China's impact on Korea's ICT exports considering the direct competition channel, the production shift channel, and the indirect demand channel at once. This paper also takes China's economic rebalancing into account and discusses whether it makes any differences in the effect of the three channels. Design/methodology - To quantify the effect of the three channels, I constructed a linear panel regression model and estimated it with various estimation methods including the system GMM. China's exports toward the same destination as Korea's exports, Korea's exports toward China, and the third countries' exports toward China respectively reflect the three channels. China's GVC indicators are included as well to evaluate the effect of further China's economic rebalancing. Since the present paper has a greater interest in the effect of China rather than the determinant of bilateral trade, a (fixed effect) panel model becomes more appropriate than the gravity model because timeinvariant variables in the gravity model, such as the distance and the language, are eliminated during the estimation process. Findings - The estimation results indicate that Chinese ICT exports are complementary to Korea's ICT exports in general. However, when markets are considered in subgroups, China's ICT exports could have a negative effect in the long run, especially for SITC75 and SITC76 markets, implying a possible competitive threat of China. The production shift effect turns significant during China's economic rebalancing in the markets for the advanced economies and the SITC76 product. China's indirect demand channel is also in effect significantly for the advanced economy and SITC75 commodities during China's economic rebalancing periods. In addition, this paper shows that China's transition toward upstream in the global value chain could have a positive impact on Korea's ICT exports, especially at the Asian market. Originality/value - The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it focuses on the ICT industry for which Korea increasingly depends on China and China becomes a global hub of the GVC. Second, this paper quantitatively studies three channels in a model in contrast to the literature which mostly examines those channels separately and pays less attention to the GVC aspect. Third, by utilizing relatively recent data from the period of 2001-2017, this paper discusses whether China's economic rebalancing affects the three channels.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.177-187
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• 2018

In this study, we examined Korea's exports and imports trends to the world and Korea's exports and imports trends to Vietnam. We also examined exports and imports trends about China, USA, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan in Korea's major trading nation. The purpose of this study is to examine how much Korea's exports and imports of Vietnam have increased and to compare how much it has risen compared to other major countries. To this end, we used imports and exports data for Korea, China, USA, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan using data from January 2000 to February 2018 for 218 months. During the past 218 months, Korea's exports to Vietnam have increased rapidly, leading to Korea's exports to the world. Korea's exports to Vietnam showed a 10 times increase rate compared to Korea's exports to the world. Vietnam has grown to be an important export country in Korea.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.107-123
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• 2020

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Granger Causality relations between Korean FDI and exports in Vietnam using time-series from 2005 to 2019. Using 15-industry semi-annual data of Korean FDI and exports toward Vietnam, the Granger Causality Tests were conducted. Var and VEC models were decided after unit-root and cointegration tests of variables. Findings and implications of the empirical tests are as follows. First, unexpectedly FDI did not Grange-cause exports only in one direction. In two industries, food & beverage and medical & chemical products, there were Granger causality relations in both directions. In eight industries including print, publishig, pulp & paper, exports did Grange-cause FDI. In the rest of five industries including automative & trailer industry, there were no Granger Causality relation in both directions. Second, we presume that the both direction-causality relations are desirable phenomenon for Korea. Because Korean FDI and exports are increasing at the same time. On the other hand, substitution relationship between Korea's exports and FDI occur in the industry that exports did Grange-cause FDI. Finally, more in-depth researches considering Vietnam's consumer demand and the oriented characteristics of FDI are needed. The results of this research will contribute to understand structural patterns of FDI and exports in Vietnam and to make investment and export decisions.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze how Korea's exports amount changed due to COVID-19 and what factors played a role in these changes. We analyze Korea's exports with 40 countries around the world. In analyzing the impact of COVID-19, we estimate the gravity model using international trade data for five years from 2015 to 2019 and and compare the results with those for 2020. Several factors such as mortality, quarantine intensity, industry characteristics are considered for the analysis. The following results were obtained. First, as a whole, exports of Korea decreased significantly to countries with strong containment measures. In addition, Korea's exports (increase further) or decrease less to countries with a large number of deaths and confirmed cases in importing countries. Second, these results were similar in the major industries, classified by HS two units. Exports to countries with strong containment decreased a lot while exports decreased less to the countries with severe COVID19 (based on the number of deaths or confirmed cases). Third, however, different results were obtained in the analysis of reagents and vaccines, which are detailed items directly related to COVID-19. Rather, the degree of containment does not matter for these items, and it seems that Korea exported more to countries to more severe Corona countries.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.289-305
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• 2019

Recently, each country has been using non-tariff barriers (Non-Tariff Barriers, NTB) as a new protection trade policy. In particular, TBT lies at the center of NTB. In this context, we examine the impact of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) on Korea's exports to ASEAN. Using 10-year statistics from 2007 to 2016 that came into effect with the ASEAN FTA, we analyze the impact of TBT on the Korean exports in the electrical machinery industry (HS85), which accounts for more than 30 percent of Korea's total exports to ASEAN. The results of the empirical analysis using a gravity model showed significant and positive effects in the variables of GDP and real effective exchange rate in each ASEAN country on Korea's exports to ASEAN. As expected, the tariff rate has a negative effect. As for TBT, the key variable of this study, the results are as follows. Although many previous studies reported that TBT has negative impacts on exports, this study could not find any significant impact of TBT and found that Korea's exports of electrical machinery to ASEAN countries are not affected by TBT. Various implications of these results are suggested.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.101-118
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• 2020

This study aims to quantify the effects of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on exports in the Korean manufacturing industry. To do this, we employ product-level export data that includes information about whether or not a product is affected by NTMs. One of the main results is that NTMs (SPS/TBT) on average led to reduction in Korean exports. However, the effects of NTMs differed depending on the income level of the NTM-imposing country. The NTMs imposed by high-income countries, such as U.S.A. and Japan, were found to impede Korean exports, whereas the export effect of NTMs imposed by low-income countries such as China was found to not be statistically significant. In addition, the results analyzed based across industries, income level, and types of NTMs are as follows. First, NTMs imposed on textile-related products generally hindered exports regardless of the type of NTMs, but its negative impact on exports was noticeable in the case of NTMs originating from high-income countries. On the other hand, chemical product-related NTMs were found to lead to an increase in Korean exports, and it had a positive effect in the case of SPS imposed by low-income countries. In other industries except for textile- and chemical-related products, the effects of NTMs on exports were either statistically insignificant or showed inconsistent patterns.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.183-195
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• 2022

Purpose - The study attempted to analyze how the U.S.-China trade dispute affects a highly trade-dependent South Korea. Currently, major domestic and international institutions have issued a number of conflicting predictions that the trade dispute between China and the United States will have a positive and negative impact on South Korea. Accordingly, the present study attempted to analyze using actual data. Design/methodology/approach - The analysis was conducted using actual import and export data from the United States and China and actual import and export data from the United States and China from South Korea. The analysis measured the number and amount of imports and exports by year and month, and the rate of increase and decrease. We also looked at trade dispute days, import and export outcomes and what the impact was. In addition, as a result of the US-China trade dispute, the amount of change in Korea's imports and exports was analyzed. Findings - Empirical analysis shows that South Korea's exports to the United States and China have increased. The analysis results are as follows. First, exports to the United States increased by 5.65% in 2018 and 6.45% in 2019 compared to 2017. Second, exports to China surged 12.34% in 2018 compared to 2017. This increase in South Korea's exports to the United States and its mass exports to the United States shows that South Korea has benefited from the trade dispute between the United States and China. Research implications or Originality - South Korea, which is highly trade-dependent, has been heavily affected by the U.S.-China trade dispute. Various predictions are made about this. The analysis showed that South Korea's export volume has increased. In the end, the effect of the trade transition to the 3rd country did not occur. Rather, the U.S.-China trade dispute appears to have helped South Korea.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.34-65
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• 2019

This paper investigates the effects on Korean exports of demand in developed economies, and how these effects have changed since the global financial crisis. As a measure of import demand, we use import intensity-adjusted demand to take into account heterogenous import intensities across components of aggregate demand. Our estimation of a dynamic panel regression model reveals that Korea's exports to the G7 countries were elastic with respect to the import demand of these countries until the global financial crisis, but have shifted to become inelastic since. Furthermore, we separately estimate the effects of the different components of the G7 countries' aggregate demand (private consumption, public consumption, investment and exports). The results show that the decrease in private consumption in the G7 countries during the crisis had a significant impact in causing the decline in Korea's exports to them, but that the increase in their public consumption since the crisis has had a significant effect on driving increased Korean exports to them. The effects of the G7 countries' exports on Korea's exports to them remain positive and significant during both the pre- and post-crisis periods. The effects of the G7 countries' investments on Korea's exports are also positive and significant, but the positive effect has weakened since the crisis. Our findings suggest that the overall effect of changes in the G7 countries' import demand on Korea's exports to them has weakened compared to the pre-crisis period.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.92-107
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper analyzes the relationship between trade facilitation and agricultural products exports and estimates the effects of trade facilitation in importing countries on Chinese agricultural products exports, which is of great significance for promoting agricultural trade between China,Japan and Korea and the governments of the three countries to formulate targeted trade facilitation policies. Design/methodology - Based on Wilson (2003) theoretical framework, this paper sets up its own trade facilitation level measurement system by involving four primary indicators and fifteen secondary indicators to evaluate the trade facilitation levels of Japan and Korea from 2011 to 2018 respectively. The paper selected the data on China's agricultural exports at the HS4 level from 2011-2018 and used a fixed-effects model to estimate the effect of changes in trade facilitation levels in trading partner countries on China's agricultural trade. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: the level of trade facilitation in importing countries has a significantly positive effect on China's agricultural exports. The higher the level of trade facilitation in trading partner countries, the more Chinese agricultural exports trade, i.e. for every 1 percentage point increase in the level of trade facilitation, the volume of exports will increase by 2.299%.The sub-sample test shows that China's main agricultural products exported to Japan and Korea, such as aquatic products, vegetables, fruits and other perishable fresh products, are particularly significantly affected by the level of trade facilitation. Originality/value - First, from the innovation of the research perspective, which is different from the analysis of the existing paper on the overall trade facilitation of all traded commodities. This article is based on the close trade relations between China, Japan and Korea, and the particularity of agricultural products, from the perspective of China's agricultural exports to Japan and Korea, discuss the impact of importing countries-Japan and Korea's trade facilitation levels on China's agricultural exports;Secondly, in this paper, the hierarchical data of the HS4 quartile is used to avoid the information loss of the industry, and to analyse the impact of the importing country's trade facilitation level on the export of different types of agricultural products more scientifically.