• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.845-852
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• 2003

Forecasting exchange rate movements is a challenging task since exchange rates impact world economy and determine value of international investments. In particular, Korean-U.S. exchange rate behavior is very important because of strong Korean and U.S. trading relationship. Neural networks models have been used for short-term prediction of exchange rate movements. Least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) is used widely in real-world regression tasks. This paper describes the use of LS-SVM for short-term and long-term prediction of Korean-U.S. exchange rate.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.121-138
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• 2010

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the Bretton Woods II hypothesis, by analysing the relationship between the exchange rates and the U.S. current account against 9 Asian countries for the period of 1999-2008. According to the estimation results, It is found that the Asian currencies' real depreciation significantly have worsened the U.S. current account against the Asian countries. Also, the U.S. current account was significantly affected by GDP and investment of the U.S. and the Asian countries. Thus, It is hard to say that the main driver of the global imbalance is the exchange rates devaluation policies of Asian countries as the Bretton Woods II hypothesis argues. The global imbalance is more likely to be complementally affected by savings glut in the Asian region and the deficiency of net saving in the U.S. Therefore, the global imbalance is expected to adjust when economic conditions besides exchange rates change.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.27-49
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• 1992

This paper stresses the role of market fundamentals rather than bubbles in explaining Korea's recent experience of large fluctuations of stock and real estate prices. The bubble story that emphasizes the self-fulfilling prophecies of investors seems to be inappropriate to explain the recent changes of assets prices in Korea. Those who argue for bubble phenomenon in Korea tend to interpret the volatile movements of assets prices as some form of bubbles, but without implementing a rigorous test on the presence of bubbles. Even when some bubble tests are carried out, such studies exhibit various econometric problems in testing. More seriously, they suffer from the misspecification problems in setting up a market model. This paper has shown that Korea's recent changes in assets prices could be explained by changes in market fundamentals according to the emergence and the subsequent fading of 'three lows'. First, it tried to explain changes in assets prices by changes in such market fundamentals as real interest rates and economic growth. Second, it showed that the real estate prices overshoot when the liquidity and exchange rates change, using the two-sector general equilibrium portfolio balance model. It is argued that the rapid rise in real estate prices during 1986-89 stems from Yen's and Won's appreciation $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the U.S. dollar and liquidity expansion (or decreases in real interest rates), while the downturn in real estate prices since 1990 is associated with Yen's and Won's depreciation $vis-{\grave{a}}-vis$ the U.S. dollar and rises in real interest rates in reflection of the excess demand for liquidity.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.5-9
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• 2017

Purpose - Many countries rely on currency depreciation or debt-financed government spending to stimulate their economies. Currency depreciation tends to increase net exports and aggregate demand but reduce short-run aggregate supply due to higher import costs. Debt-financed government spending increases aggregate demand, but the crowding-out effect due to a higher real interest rate may reduce private spending and aggregate demand. Therefore, the net impact of currency depreciation or debt-financed government spending on equilibrium real GDP is unclear. Research design, data, and methodology - This paper examines potential impacts of real depreciation of the ringgit, more government debt as a percent of GDP and other relevant macroeconomic variables on aggregate output in Malaysia. Results - Applying the AD/AS model, this paper finds that aggregate output in Malaysia is positively associated with real appreciation during 2005.Q3-2010.Q3, real depreciation during 2010.Q4-2016.Q1, the debt-to-GDP ratio and the real stock price, negatively affected by the real lending rate and inflation expectations, and is not influenced by the real oil price. Conclusions - Real depreciation of the ringgit after 2010. Q3 or sustainable expansionary fiscal policy would be beneficial to the economy.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.5-9
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper examines whether fiscal and monetary expansion would affect output in Australia. Research design, data, and methodology - An extended IS-LM model which describes the equilibrium in the goods market and the money market is applied. The real effective exchange rate and the real stock price are included in order to determine whether there may be any substitution or wealth effect. The sample consists of Annual data ranging from 1990 to 2018. The GARCH process is used in empirical work to correct for potential autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity. Results - Expansionary fiscal policy reduces output; whereas, expansionary monetary policy raises output. In addition, real appreciation of the Australian dollar, a lower U.S. interest rate, a higher real stock price or a lower expected inflation would increase output. The finding that expansionary fiscal policy has a negative impact on real GDP suggests that the negative crowding-out effect on private spending dominates the positive impact. Conclusions - Fiscal prudence needs to be pursued. Real depreciation of the Australian dollar hurts output. Monetary tightening in the U.S. generates a negative effect on Australia's output. A healthy stock market is conducive to economic growth as higher stock prices tend to result in the wealth and other positive effects, increasing consumption and business spending.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.277-297
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• 2009

This paper empirically investigates a long-run and short-run equilibrium relationships for exchange rate and stock prices in Korea and Japan from January 1998 to July 2008. Because using monthly data in my study, analyzes unit root test and VEC model including seasonality to overcome bias that happen in seasonal adjustment. The empirical evidence suggests that exists strong evidence supporting the long-run cointegration relationships between exchange rates and stock prices of the Korea and Japan. This implies that it is possible to predict one market from another for both countries, which seems to violate the efficient market hypothesis. In the long-run a negative relationship running from the KRW/JPY real exchange rate to the stock prices of Korea strongly argues for the traditional approach.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.59-68
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• 1996

Common belief in border regions holds that Mexican cross-border shoppers play a larger role in the regional economic base than they do and that NAFTA will provide a bigger stimulus to the regional economy than it is likely. In the regional economy than it is likely. In the first case, price elasticities are implicitly underestimated as highly inelastic and in the latter case, overestimated as highly elastic. This paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of distance and real exchange rates as price proxies on both field survey and population-imputed estimates of cross-border shopping. After estimating both distance-based and real exchange rate-based estimates of price elasticities of Mexican shopper demand for U.S. border-region goods, implications are obtained concerning the relative importance for U.S. border-regon economies of more distant Mexican markets, and the likely impacts of NAFTA.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 1990

For the last several years, considerable criticism has been leveled against Korea's exchange rate management. While Korea was designated a currency manipulator by the U.S., domestically it is often complained that the won/dollar rate did not adequately reflect changes in Korea's export competitiveness and fluctuations in the exchange rates of major currencies. In view of this situation, Korea changed its exchange regime at the beginning of March this year from the dual currency basket system to a more flexible one, called a "market average rate regime". Under this new regime, the won rate is determined in the exchange market based upon the supply of and demand for foreign exchange and is allowed to freely fluctuate each day within a + 0.4 % range. This paper, first, seeks to evaluate Korea's exchange rate management under the dual basket regime of the 1980s, and then to construct an optimal currency basket for the won which could provide a proper indicator for exchange market intervention under the new market average rate regime. The analysis of fluctuations in the real effective exchange rate (REER) of the won indicates that the won rates in the 1980s failed not only to offset changes in relative prices between home and trading partner countries, but also to properly respond to variations in major exchange rates as further evidenced by sizable fluctuations in the nominal effective rates of the won. In other words, the currency basket regime which was adopted in 1980 for the stabilization of the REER of the won has not been operated properly, mainly because authorities often resorted to policy considerations in determining the won's rate. In the second part of the paper, an optimal currency basket for Korea is constructed, designed to minimize the fluctuations in the REER of the won without including policy considerations as a factor. It is recognized, however, that both domestic and foreign price data are not available immediately for the calculation of the REER. For this problem, the approach suggested by Lipschitz (1980) is followed, in which optimal weights for currencies in the basket are determined based upon the past correlation between price and exchange rates. When the optimal basket is applied to Korea since the mid-80s, it is found that the REER of the won could have been much more stable than it actually was. We also argue for the use of variable weights rather than fixed ones, which would be determined by the changing relationship between exchange rates and relative prices. The optimal basket, and the optimal basket exchange rate based on that basket, could provide an important medium- or long-term reference for proper exchange market intervention under the market average rate regime, together with other factors, such as developments in the current account balance and changes in productivity.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.41-76
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• 2017

This paper analyses the market shares and the export similarity indexes (ESI) of Korea, Japan and China in ASEAN, and then identifies the determinants of Korea's exports to ASEAN countries using single equation cointegration approaches, such as fully modified OLS (FMOLS), dynamic OLS (DOLS), and canonical cointegration regression (CCR). Various regression results are as follows: As expected, Korea's real exports tend to increase as importing country's GDP grows. The competing third country's currency depreciation affects Korea's exports differently from country to country. Most notably, it doesn't significantly affect Korean exports in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. These results suggest that bilateral or third country exchange rates are not that important or decisive factors to determine Korea's exports to ASEAN countries in the long-run while economic growth in ASEAN countries matters most.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.209-223
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• 2024

Purpose - This article analyzes the impact of macroeconomic variables of the United States, China, and Korea on KOSPI and VKOSPI, in that United States and China have a great influence on Korea, having an export-driven economy. Design/methodology/approach - The influence of US, China, and Korea interest rates, industrial production index, consumer price index, US employment index, Chinese real estate index, and Korea's foreign exchange reserves on KOSPI and VKOSPI is analyzed on monthly basis from Jan 2012 to Aug 2023, using multifactor model. Findings - The KOSPI showed a positive relationship with the U.S. industrial production index and Korea's foreign exchange reserves, and a negative relationship with the U.S. employment index and Chinese real estate index. The VKOSPI showed a positive relationship with the Chinese consumer price index, and a negative relationship with the U.S. interest rates, and Korean foreign exchange reserves. Next, dividing the analysis into two periods with the Covid crisis and the analysis by country, the impact of US macroeconomic variables on KOSPI was greater than Chinese ones and the impact of Chinese macroeconomic variables on VKOSPI was greater than US ones. The result of the forward predictive failure test confirmed that it was appropriate to divide the period into two periods with economic event, the Covid Crisis. After the Covid crisis, the impact of macroeconomic variables on KOSPI and VKOSPI increased. This reflects the financial market co-movements due to governments' policy coordination and central bank liquidity supply to overcome the crisis in the pandemic situation. Research implications or Originality - This study is meaningful in that it analyzed the effects of macroeconomic variables on KOSPI and VKOSPI simultaneously. In addition, the leverage effect can also be confirmed through the relationship between macroeconomic variables and KOSPI and VKOSPI. This article examined the fundamental changes in the Korean and global financial markets following the shock of Corona by applying this research model before and after Covid crisis.