• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.35-46
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• 2016

This study investigates the export behavior of Busan, Gwangyang and Incheon Port. The monthly data cover the period from January 2000 to December 2015. We employ six export functions composed of various exchange rates and industrial production index. This paper finds that the nominal effective exchange rate is more appropriate for explaining the export behaviors of the three ports, regardless of the narrow and wide indices which comprise 26 and 61 economies for the nominal and real indices respectively. This paper tests whether exchange rate and industrial production are stationary or not, rejecting the null hypothesis of a unit root in each of the level variables and of a unit root for the residuals from the cointegration at the 5 percent significance level. The error-correction model is estimated to find that both Gwangyang and Incheon ports are much slower than Busan port in adjusting the short-run disequilibrium and Gwangyang port is a little slower than Incheon port. The rolling regressions show that the influence of exchange rate as well as industrial production tends to decrease in all of three ports. The variance decomposition, however, shows that the export variables are very exogenous and the export of Busan Port is the least exogenous and that of Gwangyang Port the most. This result indicates that the economic variables such as exchange rate and economic activity affect the export of Busan Port more strongly than that of Gwangyang and Incheon Port.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.27-49
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• 2016

This study examines the effects of real exchange rate (RER) depreciation shocks on firm-level productivity and employment in Daegu-Gyeongbuk manufacturing industries during 2006-2012. In particular, the study focuses on a sharp and persistent RER depreciation of the Korean Won from 2007 to 2009, which is a situation akin to a natural experiment in Korea. We find that RER depreciation has positive effects on productivity for firms with high export exposure in foreign markets. However, these effects disappear when RER depreciation persists. In addition, we do not find evidence that RER depreciation affects employment of Daegu-Gyeongbuk firms significantly. Firms in Daegu-Gyeongbuk region should pursue core competency to obtain international competitiveness rather than depending on temporary better price condition driven by RER depreciation. Further, policy makers in a local government should provide firms with financial and investment support to encourage innovation and R&D.