Purpose - This paper examines how differently output and input tariffs affect domestic employment across industrial characteristics of comparative advantage such as labor quality and capital intensity. Design/methodology - The paper focuses on 453 Korean industries from 2007 to 2014 because Korea is a typical example of a natural resource-scarce open economy and experienced the transition of the export pattern from labor intensity to technology intensity during this period. Findings - The results show that input tariff reduction stimulated total employment, focusing on the early 2010s, while the effects of output tariff reduction were statistically insignificant in general. However, the stimulation effects of output tariff reduction on employment were found in comparative advantage industries with greater labor quality and capital intensity. As for input tariff reduction, its stimulation effects on employment were more prominent in comparative disadvantage industries with lower labor quality and capital intensity. Originality/value - These results provide significant implications for natural resource-scarce open economies which are experiencing the transition of the export pattern from labor intensity to technology intensity and the unequal distribution of income after trade liberalization: imported intermediate inputs has become increasing important, leading to trade effects on employment and alleviation of income inequality.

Purpose - The Korean government has been promoting the New Southern Policy (NSP) prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which damage global value chain (GVC). The purpose of this paper is to emphasize that the NSP should be developed to provide tangible support in corporate GVC adjustment, away from diplomatic activities in order to offset GVC losses due to COVID-19 and expand export capabilities. Design/methodology - Two research methodologies are combined for this paper: A computational general equilibrium (CGE) model is used to estimate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and NSP on Korea's exports, and the decomposition methodology (Wang, Wei and Zhu, 2013) to evaluate the stability of GVC. The conventional CGE model was modified to obtain an estimate for decomposition. The research methodology adopted in this study was attempted for the first time, and it can be widely used in future GVC research. Findings - Results found the effects of COVID-19 reduced Korea's total exports by 27% and GVC by more than 30%. In particular, VA in Korea's exports to the NSP region was found to have a huge impact in heavy industries and textiles, and its exports to Vietnam seemed to suffer the largest loss in GVC among ASEAN countries. If the NSP is implemented properly, it appears that it could offset much of the negative impacts of COVID-19, implying the importance of the effectiveness of the NSP. Originality/value - Many papers have assessed the NSP descriptively, and the GVC has been a topic for many publications. However, the impact of COVID-19 on Korea's GVC with the NSP countries has not been quantitatively studied. This paper emphasizes that the NSP should be pursued based on the results of quantitative analysis. In addition, the research methodology of this paper can be used for other GVC research with relevant modifications.

Purpose - Korean exports account for a vast proportion of Korean GDP, and large volumes of Korean products are sold in the United States. Identifying and characterizing actual and potential product hazards related to Korean products is critical to safeguard Korean export trade, as severe quality issues can impair Korea's reputation and reduce global consumer confidence in Korean products. In this study, we develop country-of-origin-based product risk analysis methods for social media with a specific focus on Korean-labeled products, for the purpose of safeguarding Korean export trade. Design/methodology - We employed two social media datasets containing consumer-generated product reviews. Sentiment analysis is a popular text mining technique used to quantify the type and amount of emotion that is expressed in the text. It is a useful tool for gathering customer opinions regarding products. Findings - We document and discuss the specific potential risks found in Korean-labeled products and explain their implications for safeguarding Korean export trade. Finally, we analyze the false positive matches that arise from the established dictionaries that were used for risk discovery and utilize these classification errors to suggest opportunities for the future refinement of the associated automated text analytic methods. Originality/value - Various studies have used online feedback from social media to analyze product defects. However, none of them links their findings to trade promotion and the protection of a specific country's exports. Therefore, it is important to fill this research gap, which could help to safeguard export trade in Korea.

Purpose - Recent empirical studies have shown that FDI is expected to be strongly associated with democratic governance, political stability, and sound macroeconomic conditions of the host country. We attempt to take it a step further to see if governments implement a major change in institutional characteristics, will the institutional reform toward better governance have a substantive effect in enhancing FDI inflows. This paper thus aims to analyze the importance of good governance as an important factor in the attractiveness of FDI inflows in ASEAN+3 (Korea, China, Japan) countries. Design/methodology - To determine the effects of good governance on FDI inflows across ASEAN+3 countries recorded between 1996-2018, the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are used to investigate the impact of good governance on FDI inflows. The model has been estimated by using fixed effects to show the robustness of the results. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: Political Stability, Rule of Law, and Voice and Accountability have a statistically significant impact on the inflow of FDI in the ASEAN+3 Countries, especially for Korean economy. Moreover, GDP growth continue to exert their positive influence. However, Regulatory Quality, Government Effectiveness and Control of Corruption, though equally important, are insignificant to attract FDI inflows. The key finding is that good governance has a significant impact on inward FDI in the ASEAN+3 countries. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on the impact of political factors on FDI across countries. This paper instead attempts to investigate which type of good governance is the most important in promoting FDI inflows across ASEAN+3 countries, which is essential for multinationals to consider when choosing a foreign site as a possible FDI destination.

Purpose - Based on complexity theory, this study develops a configurational model to predict the profitability of Halal cosmetics firms in the Indonesian and Malaysian markets. The proposed research model involves two level configurations-industry context and selling strategies-to predict high and low scores of a firm's profitability. The industry context configuration model comprises industry stability, product homogeneity, price sensitivity, and switching cost. Selling strategies include customer-focused, competitor-focused, and margin-focused approaches. Design/methodology - This is the first empirical study that calculates causal models using a combination of industry context and selling strategy factors to predict profitability. Data obtained from the marketing managers of cosmetics firms are used to test the proposed configurational model using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). It contributes to the current knowledge of business marketing by identifying the factors necessary to achieve profitability using analysis of condition (ANC). Findings - The results revealed that unique and distinct models explain the conditions for high and low profitability in the Indonesian and Malaysian halal cosmetic markets. While customer-focused selling strategy is necessary to attain a higher profit in both the markets, margin-focused selling strategy appears to be an essential factor only in Malaysia. Complexity of the interactions of selling strategies with industry factors and differences between across two study markets confirmed that complexity theory can support the research configurational model. The theoretical and practical implications are also illustrated. Originality/value - Despite the rapid growth of the global halal industry, there is little knowledge about the halal cosmetic market. This study contributes to the current literature of the halal market by performing a set of asymmetric analytical approaches using a complex theoretical model. It also deepens our understating of how the Korean firms can approach the Muslim consumer's needs to generate more beneficial turnover/revenue.

Purpose - The buyer's right to withhold performance is a useful and important self-help remedy to protect himself from the seller's breach of contract, and it is also the coercive means to induce the seller to perform his part of contract. However, the buyer's exercise of such a right often exposes himself to the risk of breaching the contract. This is generally due to his ignorance when he is entitled to the right and also uncertainties inherent in the law. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine what the requirements should be fulfilled before the buyer exercises the right for the seller's actual breach of contract. Design/methodology - In order to achieve the purposes of the study, it executes a comparative study of the rules as to the requirements for the buyer's right to withhold performance for the seller's actual non-performance under the CISG and the CESL. It mainly focuses on performance due, the seller's non-performance, the buyer's readiness to perform and the requirement of notice. Findings - The main findings of this comparative study can be summarized as follows: Although the CISG has no expressive provision for the buyer's general right to withhold performance for the seller's actual non-performance, it may be inferred from the general principles the CISG underlies, synallagmatic nature of the contract. In addition, it can be drawn by analogy from relevant provisions of the CISG. On the other hand, the CESL expressively provides that the buyer has a general right to withhold performance where the seller fails to tender performance or perform the contract. Therefore, it seems that the position of CESL is rather easier and more apparent to allow the buyer to withhold performance for the seller's non-performance. Originality/value - Most of the existing studies on the right to withhold performance under the CISG have centered on the right to withhold performance for an anticipatory breach of contract. On the other hand, there have been few prior studies on the right to withhold performance for the actual nonperformance during a contractual period of performance. Therefore, this paper examined the requirements for the buyer's right to withhold performance under the CISG and the CESL in a comparative way for the seller's actual breach of obligation. In this conclusion, it may provide practical and legal considerations and implications for business people who are not certain about the right to withhold performance.

Purpose - The principle aim of this study is to further investigate the relationship between market diversity and export performance. We examine the benefits and costs of geographic market diversity regarding the number of countries exported to by firms on their export performance. Based on the financial risk reduction model and the entry costs model, we propose a way to incorporate the costs and benefits aspects of market diversity. Design/methodology - To empirically investigate our research question, the curvilinear relationship between market diversity and export performance, we built a secondary panel data set between 2015 and 2019, containing 17,863 observations of Korean exporting companies. A generalized least squares panel estimator with fixed effects was employed to test the hypothesis, and the statistical package, Stata 14, was used. Findings - Our main findings are as follows: As market diversity increases, export performance increases because exporters can diversify and reduce financial risks in export markets. However, the relationship between the two does not grow. As it peaks, the entry costs increase due to the high market diversity, thereby outweighing the benefits, leading, eventually to decrease in the export performance. Consequently, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between market diversity and export performance. Originality/value - In the export and trade literature, the impact of market diversity on export performance has not been addressed yet, despite the importance of this subject. Many scholars have assumed a positive linear relationship between the two, considering only the decrease in market risks as the number of overseas markets increases, without examining the increase in the entry and management costs. Therefore, our study contributes by providing a new perspective for analyzing the characteristics and outcomes of market diversity.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to analyze the determinants of commodity trade in Korea and China and to examine the implications of China's GVC shift from export to domestic market on its impact on Korea's trade. Design/methodology - This study selected 30 major trading partner countries. The dependent variable is the trade volume, and the independent variables are general economic factors such as gross domestic product (GDP), GDP per capita, distance, and FTA. Findings - The trade pattern of Korea's commodities shows that GDP has a positive relationship with trade, import, and export. Distance has a significant negative relationship with total trade, import, and export. FTA is significant for import but it is not significant for total trade and export. The trade pattern of China's commodities shows that GDP has a significant positive relationship with total trade, import, and export. Distance has a negative relationship with trade, import, and export. GDP per capita is not significant for total trade and import, but it is significant for export. FTA is significant for total trade and export, but it is not significant for import. Originality/value - Existing papers were studied mainly in certain industrial sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, automobile industry and steel industry. This paper attempts to collects vast amounts of data about the 30 countries of Korea and China respectively and analyzes by Random Effect Model dividing the goods (0 to 9) in units of STIC (Rev. 4). The major contribution is that the decision factors affecting commodity trade can be analyzed in SITC units (0-9) to obtain analysis results that are subdivided by product group and organized by product.

Purpose - As the US-China trade war intensifies and lasts long time, there is growing concern about its potential effects on the global economy. In particular, for the countries like Korea that have a large economic dependence on the economy of the two countries, the US-China trade war may have a great repercussion in many ways. The aim of this paper is to investigate the global productivity and market structure implications of the US-China trade war for Korea, as well as for other surrounding countries and regions. Design/methodology - In this paper, we develop a full multi-country/region multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of global trade incorporating heterogeneous workers and firms in individual skill levels and used technologies. We then calibrate the model using a global Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) dataset extracted from the recently released GTAP 10 Database, and assess the potential effects of the US-China trade war on the aggregate real productivity and the market structure for Korea, as well as for other surrounding countries and regions. Findings - We show that the US-China trade war may largely affect the aggregate productivity in each sector in each country/region, as well as the global market structure through entry and exit of firms, which results finally in considerable changes in the industrial comparative advantage of each country/region. Though the effects are diverse sector by sector, the results show that Korea may also be affected significantly: concerning the real productivity implications, it is shown that the machinery industry may be affected the most negatively; on the other hand, it is shown that the number of exporting firms may decrease the most in the other transports industry. Originality/value - As the US-China trade war intensifies, many studies have tried to estimate the possible implications, and for this usually the CGE models have largely been used as the standard tool for evaluating the impacts of changes in trade policies. Standard CGE models, however, cannot be used to assess the global productivity and market structure implications due to the symmetric and simplified base assumptions. This paper is the first to analyze and quantify the possible impacts of the US-China trade war on the aggregate productivity and global market structure using a CGE model incorporating endogenous skill-technology assignment of heterogeneous workers and firms.

Purpose - This is an exploratory study that aims to apply text mining techniques, which computationally extracts words from the large-scale text data, to legal documents to quantify trade claim contents and enables statistical analysis. Design/methodology - This is designed to verify the validity of the application of text mining techniques as a quantitative methodology for trade claim studies, that have relied mainly on a qualitative approach. The subjects are 81 cases of arbitration and court judgments from China published on the website of the UNCITRAL where the CISG was applied. Validation is performed by comparing the manually analyzed result with the automatically analyzed result. The manual analysis result is the cluster analysis wherein the researcher reads and codes the case. The automatic analysis result is an analysis applying text mining techniques to the result of the cluster analysis. Topic modeling and semantic network analysis are applied for the statistical approach. Findings - Results show that the results of cluster analysis and text mining results are consistent with each other and the internal validity is confirmed. And the degree centrality of words that play a key role in the topic is high as the between centrality of words that are useful for grasping the topic and the eigenvector centrality of the important words in the topic is high. This indicates that text mining techniques can be applied to research on content analysis of trade claims for statistical analysis. Originality/value - Firstly, the validity of the text mining technique in the study of trade claim cases is confirmed. Prior studies on trade claims have relied on traditional approach. Secondly, this study has an originality in that it is an attempt to quantitatively study the trade claim cases, whereas prior trade claim cases were mainly studied via qualitative methods. Lastly, this study shows that the use of the text mining can lower the barrier for acquiring information from a large amount of digitalized text.

Purpose - This paper attempted to verify the process by which a multinational corporation (MNC)'s subsidiary practices entrepreneurship to create effective knowledge (KC) in the local market. We have looked at whether subsidiary entrepreneurship (SENT) has a moderation effect in creating knowledge for the local market when a subsidiary has been given autonomy (AUT) from the headquarters (HQ). We also argue that when a subsidiary creates meaningful knowledge, the effect of the increased status by the HQ within the MNC network position (NP) has an indirect effect on whether knowledge is transferred to other overseas subsidiaries (KTO). Design/methodology - This paper used a structural equation model (SEM) of 282 effective foreign companies invested in Korea. To test the hypothesis about the process of SENT on KTO, descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, convergent and discriminant validities, and common method bias were analyzed using STATA. In addition, the moderation effect was verified along with SEM. The moderation effect of AUT on SENT and KC was presented graphically by confirming \mathrm{\pm1} standard deviation of AUT for the main effect. Findings - Our findings are as follows. First, while the hypothesis about the direct effect of SENT and KC on KTO was not supported, all other hypotheses were supported. Second, both the AUT and moderating effect and the indirect effect of NP were significant. In the conclusion, these findings are discussed in relation to its various theoretical and practical implications. Originality/value - This study attempted to contribute to the knowledge creation theory of MNC by contemplating how subsidiaries can move away from HQ and grow in the local market. Although there is still a shortage of foreign investment in the Korean market, our practical implications offer guidance for how current subsidiaries can develop more than other overseas subsidiaries.