• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.237-252
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• 2020

This paper characterizes the optimal reciprocal trade policy in the environment of Melitz (2003) with firm productivity heterogeneity. In particular, without making parametric assumptions on firm productivity distribution, this paper derives the optimal degree of reciprocal tariff reductions that maximize the world welfare. A reciprocal import subsidy raises the industry productivity, lowering aggregate price; a reciprocal import tariff helps correct the markup distortion, increasing nominal income. With all the conflicting effects of import tariffs on welfare considered, the optimal degree of reciprocity in multilateral tariff reduction is shown to be free trade.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.313-324
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• 2022

We investigate the impacts of tariff, tariff-rate quota, conformity assessment, and traceability requirements set by the rice importers using panel data of 17 rice exporters exporting to 119 countries in two years 2015 and 2018, using both Ordinary least square (OLS) and Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPLM) methods. Results from our gravity models strongly indicate that tariff and tariff rate quota remain significantly detrimental to the world's rice exporters because these measures place downward pressure on the rice exporters' prices and the importers' import quantity, creating barriers to market participation. Our study also provides strong evidence about the role of origin certificates in allowing rice exporters to gain access to foreign markets. Meanwhile, regulatory standards such as traceability requirements and logistical and distributional requirements imposed by the rice importers are found to be major obstacles to rice importation from less-developed countries. Our study provides insights into tariff and non-tariff barriers existing in the global rice market, which is likely to assist policymakers operating in developing countries to help shape their policies and bolster rice competitiveness.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.81-98
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• 2006

Many studies on port tariff have been done over twenty years using publicly assessed data on tariff. Public data for tariff rates do not reflect, however, the port tariff in a real market, since the cargo handling charge, which is the important fraction of port tariff, is confidentially decided by the negotiations between a shipping company and a container terminal operator. In this paper, we collected the real price data of the port tariff on the world major sixteen container ports from a global shipping company and transformed it into the tariff per TEU(US$/TEU). The comparative analysis of port tariff was performed using the port tariff per TEU, and a panel regression analysis was done to identify the relations between the port tariff and demand variables: throughput, GDP and trade amount.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.43-72
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• 2019

This study examines the trends, current situation and implications of non-tariff measures (NTM) and specific trade concerns (STC) on the protection trade measures of ASEAN. ASEAN's non-tariff measures and the share of specific trade concerns are very significant as they are the second and third largest, respectively, of the major countries. This means that protection measures using non-tariff measures are a strong feature of ASEAN's trade policy. Also, in the future, ASEAN should try to prevent unnecessary disputes caused by exporting countries' specific trade concerns in the implementation of non-tariff measures. Activating trade policy cooperation is likely to reduce conflicts and costs caused by these trade disputes.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.69-91
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• 1990

A major change in tariff rates was made in January 1989 in Korea. The benchmark tariff rate, which applies to about two thirds of all commodity items, was lowered to 15 percent from 20 percent. In addition, the variation in tariff rates among different types of commodities was reduced. This paper examines the economic impact of the tariff reform using a multisectoral general equilibrium model of the Korean economy which was introduced by Lee and Chang(1988), and by Lee(1988). More specifically, this paper attempts to find the changes in imports, exports, domestic production, consumption, prices, and employment in 31 different sectors of the economy induced by the reform in tariff rates. The policy simulations are made according to three different methods. First, tariff changes in industries are calculated strictly according to the change in legal tariff rates, which tend to over-estimate the size of the tariff reduction given the tariff-drawback system and tariff exemption applied to various import items. Second, tariff changes in industries are obtained by dividing the estimated tariff revenues of each industry by the estimated imports for that industry, which are often called actual tariff rates. According to the first method, the import-weighted average tariff rate is lowered from 15.2% to 10.2%, while the second method changes the average tariff rate from 6.2% to 4.2%. In the third method, the tariff-drawback system is internalized in the model. This paper reports the results of the policy simulation according to all three methods, comparing them with one another. It is argued that the second method yields the most realistic estimate of the changes in macro-economic variables, while the third method is useful in delineating the differences in impact across industries. The findings, according to the second method, show that the tariff reform induces more imports in most sectors. Garments, leather products, and wood products are those industries in which imports increase by more than 5 percent. On the other hand, imports in agricultural, mining and service sectors are least affected. Domestic production increases in all sectors except the following: leather products, non-metalic products, chemicals, paper and paper products, and wood-product industries. The increase in production and employment is largest in export industries, followed by service industries. An impact on macroeconomic variables is also simulated. The tariff reform increases nominal GNP by 0.26 percent, lowers the consumer price index by 0.49 percent, increases employment by 0.24 percent, and worsens the trade balance by 480 million US dollars, through a rise in exports of 540 million US dollars and a rise in imports of 1.02 billion US dollars.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.335-350
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• 2008

This paper analyzes the effects of port size on port tariff using the data for world major sixteen container ports. Some previous studies show that demand for port services have significant effects on port tariff, but we cannot find studies analyzing the correlation between the supply variables and the port tariff. In this paper, we used the five supply variables, which are the number of gantry crane, the number of berth, the quay length, the terminal area and the storage capacity for containers. The panel regression results are as follows. Port tariff generally decreases as port size increases, which shows that port tariff is explained by the economic theory. However, increase of port size, in some cases, does not reduce port tariffs, which may be due to monopolistic characteristics of port. This paper also shows that both demand and supply factors affect port tariff, but that demand factors have more consistent effect on port tariff than supply factors.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.75
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• pp.179-198
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• 2017

Recently, agricultural exports of Korea have steadily increased. But, no progress is being made at the WTO and DDA negotiations, the FTAs have played a leading role in the formulation of the international trade rules, and countries have been cleverly utilizing non-tariff barriers such as SPS and TBT, there is a growing need to respond to non-tariff barriers aggressively. On the other hand, since the FTA has the potential to activate the global value chain, there is a high need for exporting companies in the domestic agricultural sector to understand the structure of the global value chain in agriculture and actively utilize the global value chain. The non-tariff measures of agricultural commodities major trading partners in the field of domestic agricultural exports were mostly comprised of SPS measures and TBT measures. The non-tariff measures corresponding to inputs and production stages of value chain elements (seeds, seedlings) in the value chain were mainly reported in SPS measures. TBT measures are mainly carried out in selective packaging, storage, processing, distribution, and export sales. It is most important for agricultural export companies to know their position on the value chain and information on non-tariff measures of importing countries in order to actively utilize the global value chain. Since there are non-tariff barriers that are difficult to be solved at the individual enterprise level, active government support of the government is not only important but also actively promoting relevant information to farmers and agricultural exporters. In addition, potential export farmers and prospective export companies will be able to identify TBT and SPS and other non-tariff barriers well in advance, and respond to them in advance. Also, through networking with export related organizations and overseas buyers, It is very important that policy support from the perspective of global value chain is linked effectively.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.59-86
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• 2011

This paper examines a country's strategic optimal tariff policy against a foreign firm with market power. That is, the purpose of the paper is, under asymmetric information, to reexamine the problem of optimal tariff policy against a foreign monopolist from another country's welfare standpoint. This is to extend the analysis of Brander and Spencer(1984) which is both analytic and elaborate. The incentive compatible tariff schedule is derived, and then policy implications are investigated. The main result is that, under incomplete information, the optimal tariff is elevated above its full-information counterpart in order to capture foreign rents. Moreover, it suggests that trade policies motivated by rent extraction are unlikely to be robust to the introduction of incomplete information. This research complements an existing literature on the strategic trade policy in terms of asymmetric information.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2004.11b
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• pp.287-289
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• 2004

Korea adopted feed-in-tariff system for diffusing the generation using renewable energies in 2002. But, there are many debatable issues about Korea's feed-in-tariff system, such as application duration and tariff level by the renewable energies. This paper surveys problems and issues which has been discussed for two years.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.75-109
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• 2007

This paper empirically investigates the effects of import tariff on within-plant productivity growth in Korean manufacturing, using the detailed plant-level longitudinal data of the Korea Census of Manufacturers for the period of 1993-2003. Our main findings are as follows: First, the productivity changes of Korean manufacturing for the period under analysis were mostly induced by within-plant productivity gains, rather than within-industry and/or between-industry resource reallocations. Second, after controlling for firm-specific heterogeneity, the estimation results indicate that lowering tariff-barriers has a positive impact on within-plant TFP growth. We interpret the results in a way that trade liberalization through the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers heightens the competitive pressure, which in turn creates incentives to reduce production and managerial inefficiency and to invest more on innovative activities. Third, we also find that plant productivity growth from reducing tariff barriers is particularly conspicuous within a year after tariff changes, which implies that plants are quickly adjusting to heightened import competition. On the other hand, our results show that the trade effect on employment creation proceeds relatively slow.