• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.129-144
• /
• 2019

Purpose - Recent empirical studies have reached mixed results on the effects of financial liberalization and currency crises. We argue that this relationship is likely to depend both on whether controls are primarily on the degrees of financial liberalization and on the stability of the government. Using the disaggregated data on financial liberalization recently developed by Abiad et al (2010) for a sample of 30 emerging countries over the period 1995-2015, we attempt to investigate the political economy determinants of currency crises. Design/methodology - Our empirical model considers the relationship between financial liberalization and currency crises for emerging market economies. This study employs the existing theoretical framework to identify the disaggregate level for financial liberalization across countries. Using a multivariate logit model, this study attempts to estimate the interrelationship among financial liberalization, government stability and currency crises complemented by a case study of South Korea. Findings - Our main findings can be summarized as follows: we find strong support for the proposition that more liberalized financial institutions are positively associated with the probability of currency crises especially under less stable governments, but reduce the risks of currency crises especially for more stable governments. We also examine the role of financial systems with the case of South Korea after Asian financial crises and the results are further supported and consistent with the empirical findings. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on the economic factors across countries. This paper instead attempts to evaluate the effects of financial liberalization and currency crises by incorporating political considerations with newly developed dataset on financial liberalization, which are essential to the understanding of the causes of currency crises.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.3-35
• /
• 2016

This paper analyses the new discipline on state-owned enterprises contained in the recently concluded Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, and evaluates various factors that influenced the shaping of its specific rules. The new discipline consolidates and strengthens related provisions in current trade regimes, reflects various aspects of trade disputes between China and the US, and adopts, as its general underlying rationale, the principle of competitive neutrality. The new discipline contains elements that may challenge the multilateral trade regime, and may serve as a role model in regulating state-owned enterprises, including subsidies in services trade in other on-going trade negotiations. The new regime makes us think hard about fundamental issues regarding enforcement of competition policy against state-owned enterprises, treatment of non-market economies, and how to deal with effects of subsidies in international trade, bringing competition issues back on the trade agenda.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.249-272
• /
• 2012

This paper examines how a Korean automobile firm price-discriminates between the Korean and the U.S. markets. We argue that a Korean automobile firm's pricing behavior depends on the differences in price elasticity over the segmented markets between the countries. Our findings are that differences in price elasticity may help explain why a medium-class car's price is higher in Korea than that in the U.S. while a small-sized car's price is higher in the U.S. than in Korea, which implies that a Korean automobile firm $3^{rd}$ degree price-discriminates on the same or similar products between Korea and the U.S. This type of $3^{rd}$ degree price discrimination differs from a typical home-bias effect (charging higher prices to domestic consumers) because a small-sized car which is produced domestically sells at higher price abroad. This finding can be added as a source that violates the law of one price.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.275-306
• /
• 2018

Amid a general rise in protectionism and a trade war between the world's two largest economies, this paper analyzes changes in gains from trade for the world over a decade marked by rapid global economic integration preceding the global financial crisis of 2007-08. It employs state-of-the-art quantitative trade models based on the gravity equation to estimate autarky gains from trade, as well as a recently introduced ANOVA-type structural estimation of the gravity equation to obtain trade costs free of residual trade cost bias. Between 1995 and 2006, the cost of moving to autarky increased by about 45% on average. A decomposition exercise suggests most of the increase in autarky gains from trade on average was due to increases in import shares in total spending, with a limited role for reallocations of spending across sectors with varied trade elasticities. Changes in trade costs between 1995 and 2006 are found to have increased autarky gains from trade, as measured in 2006, by up to 100%.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.89-124
• /
• 2020

Even with the sizable Foreign Exchange (FX) holdings and good credit ratings of its top assets, Asia remains vulnerable to various shocks. This paper highlights the limited cross-border asset pledgeability as a significant factor for the lingering vulnerability in Asia. The dichotomy in asset holdings between pledgeable FX and non-pledgeable domestic assets in major economies in Asia has been the source of increasing stabilization costs as well as weakened market momentum in the region. Specifically, the peculiar feature of asset holdings in Asia reflects seriously deficient cross-border asset pledgeability that is left unaddressed. Asset pledgeability contributes toward financial stability via three channels: 1) capital market development by recognizing the role of collateral, 2) increased shock absorption capacity via collateral management, 3) and the newly activated safe asset provision. Therefore, it is crucial to go beyond the usual market development strategy and expand the overall asset pledgeability in the region that has remained unduly depressed.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.129-159
• /
• 2013

Over the course of the recent global financial crisis, emerging economies experienced massive swings in capital inflows. In this paper, we estimate a VAR model to assess the impact of capital inflow shocks, which are identified using a set of sign restrictions, on house prices in Korea. We base the analysis on three alternative measures of capital inflows: net total inflows, net portfolio inflows and gross total inflows. The results suggest that capital inflow shocks have a significantly positive and persistent effect on real house prices. Although shocks to capital inflows are found to be substantially more important for Korean asset markets than for other OECD countries, their overall explanatory power is modest. Using regional house price data we also show that capital inflow shocks have an asymmetric effect on property markets across the seven largest Korean cities and across different parts of Seoul.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.7 no.2
• /
• pp.61-76
• /
• 2016

This study aims to establish ways of how languages are used as determination factors for investment decisions among Asian countries where used languages are diversified. According to the analysis result, language segmentation of the investing country increases investment whereas the language segmentation of the invested countries is analyzed as the decreasing factor of investment. Also, it is analyzed that the further the linguistic distance between the investing country and the invested country the more investment increases. In the aspects of approached language distance and investment time selection, along with the increased linguistic distance, the elasticity to foreign direct investment is apprehended to be more flexible than other forms of investment. Such result shows the more segmented the languages of the targeted invested country the more investment cost will increase and therefore the results in linguistic distance can be explained as diversification of the invested country and the result to the forming of bridgehead at the invested area.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.42-48
• /
• 2012

This paper examined structural changes in export specialization of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China at different levels of technological intensity. The study found significant differences across these Asian economies, with most pronounced changes for exports with high technological intensity. To account for the changing export specialization, the study applied the classical Ricardian model of comparative advantages to export patterns of Japan and South Korea. We found that the export specialization of Japan was mainly determined by differences in fixed effects across industrial sectors, with changes in relative labor productivity much less important. In contrast, changes in productivity turned out an essential factor for explaining the recent export specialization of South Korea.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.5-11
• /
• 2015

This study is the first to analyze performance of Taiwanese domestic equity funds between January 2009 and October 2014, the period during which quantitative redirected capital flows toward developing economies and the Taiwanese Stock Exchange Weighted Index compounded at approximately 12.9% annually. Adopting methods endorsed by earlier research, we evaluated 15 Taiwanese equity funds' performance relative to market averages using the Sharpe (1966) and Treynor (1965) ratios and Jensen's alpha method (1968). To test market timing proficiency, we applied the Treynor and Mazuy (1966) and Henriksson and Merton (1981) regression analysis methods. Jensen's alpha method (1968) was used to measure fund managers' stock selection skills. Results revealed that funds significantly under-performed Taiwan's average annual market return and demonstrated no exceptional stock-selection skills and market timing proficiency during the era of quantitative easing.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.507-529
• /
• 2018

This paper evaluates the whole impact of quantitative easing on inflation in Korea implemented by the central banks in four major advanced economies, the U.S., Euro Area, U.K. and Japan. According to the analysis employing a VAR-X model with the security holdings of those central banks an exogenous variable, quantitative easing is estimated to exert downward pressures on inflation in Korea. Considering the impulse responses of Korean macroeconomic variables to a quantitative easing shock, the spillover effect is transmitted through exchange rate channel while trade channel turns out to be ineffective. In an additional analysis assessing the impact of each quantitative easing program of the central banks, only those of the Fed and European Central Bank are estimated to be significant. The empirical results prove to be robust even if using long-term interest rates as an alternative indicator of quantitative easing.