• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.151-167
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between globalization and income distribution in Korea. In order to identify the key determinants, the study investigates the effects of trade openness, inward and outward FDI flows, and per capita GDP on income distribution. The study uses methodology of unit root and co-integration technique as well as an error correction model over 1992 to 2011 by using annual data. The empirical findings showed that income inequality is reduced as trade openness and the per capita GDP increase. Meanwhile, income inequality is deteriorated as inward and outward FDI flows increased. In addition, the study revealed that the negative effect of inward FDI flows on income inequality is greater than that of outward FDI flows. This result supports the Feenstra and Hanson (1997) hypothesis. Overall the globalization process can be beneficial for the Korean economy, but its nature should be closely monitored regarding income distribution.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.39-49
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• 2016

Purpose - Considering industrialization development stages, an economic effect of ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA) on foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the ASEAN countries was analyzed. Research design, data, and methodology - utilizing macro-level panel data from 2001 to 2012, panel regression analysis was conducted with a model constructed based on the knowledge-capital model. Results - As for overall ASEAN countries, ASEAN FTA was positively effective to attract vertical FDI to this region, while horizontal FDI was dominant before ASEAN FTA. Meanwhile, for the diversified economy relevant to Singapore, ASEAN FTA was not effective to attract FDI. For the ongoing industrialization economy relevant to Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, ASEAN FTA was negatively effective to attract FDI; ASEAN FTA became a strong incentive to replace foreign investments with trade transactions for the horizontal firms, but an influence of market potentials after ASEAN FTA, which induces to third-country effects such as export platform FDI, has increased. For the incipient industrialization economy relevant to Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, ASEAN FTA was positively effective to attract vertical FDI. Conclusions - The effectiveness of FTA on FDI inflows varied considerably by the industrialization development stages of host countries.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.91-115
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• 2018

This paper aims to identify the most effective mode of development finance flows for the economic growth of middle-income developing and least developed countries, separately. It also attempts to confirm whether governance has any significant role in the causal relationship between development finance flows and economic growth. Policymakers in each developing country should select the most effective modality of development finance inflows among the different modalities (such as Official Development Assistance (ODA) grants, Official Development Assistance (ODA) loans, FDI, and international personal remittances) and expand it for their economic growth. Dynamic panel regression models were used on 48 least developed countries and 89 middle-income developing countries, respectively, during the Millennium Development Era: 2000-2015. The empirical analysis results show that ODA grants and remittances were most effective in promoting economic growth for least developed countries, while FDI was most effective for middle-income developing countries. These findings were not affected by the status of governance of the individual country.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.35-51
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• 2000

International trade flows have been determined by social, cultural and political environment around the world as well as economic elements. The environment of international trade has changed rapidly as the world has globalized. Significant changes have been generated in the international trade flows. This study investigates the influences of economic globalization on the international trade flows. The changes in international trade flows examined comprehensively by integrating trade with industrial locations, investment, and the various trade related environments. The focus laid on the integration of world economies, such as widening and intensifying international linkages in economic, political and social relation. Special concerns are laid on the impacts of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) by Trans National Corporations (TNCs), which affect the supply-demand distributions of commodities by industrial relocations, and the expansion of intra-firm trade flows on the international trade flow patterns. The geographical characteristics of tile origins and destinations of FDI flows analyzed, since the spatial patterns of the intra-firm trade flows are determined by them. The FDI and intra-firm trade flow patterns have changed significantly over time.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.195-205
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• 2020

This study investigates the effects of financial development on the foreign direct investment (FDI) flow in host countries. Using bilateral FDI data from 34 OECD source countries to 146 host countries, we performed panel data analysis based on a gravity FDI equation. We hypothesized that the financial development would increase the volume of FDI flows. The results suggest that the well-functioning finance market of source countries as well as a better accessable financial market of host countries contribute to the increase in FDI of OECD in their partner countries. We found also that the financial development effects of source countries are larger than those of host countries. This result shows that the financial development can play a crucial role to impact the FDI inflows as push factor in source country than as a pull factor in host countries.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.253-268
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• 2019

This paper analyses the characteristics of partner countries when multinational firms of Korea, China, and Japan make greenfield FDI in foreign countries. Particularly, this paper applies the gravity model for greenfield FDI flows for the period 2003-2017. This paper finds that multinational firms of Korea, as compared to those of China and Japan, are very significantly and negatively responsive to political risks of partner countries. In contrast, multinational firms of Korea as well as those of China and Japan tend to make greater amounts of greenfield FDI in financially high-risk countries. This result indicates that multinational firms from these three countries should take financial risks of partner countries into more serious consideration.

• East Asian Journal of Business Economics (EAJBE)
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2015

In the later quarter of the twentieth century, the need for foreign capital is realized among the various countries of the world. Developing countries especially developed multi-pronged strategies to attract foreign capital into the country. One such strategy is the adoption of liberalization policy. Almost all the developing countries started opening their economy, out of the compulsion, to achieve faster rate of economic growth and development. Even a communist country like China adopted liberalization policy as a strategy for accelerated economic growth during 1979. India also joined the race by 1991, when the government announced the policy of liberalization. The importance of FDI extends beyond the financial capital that flows into the country. The huge size of the market in this sector and high returns on investment are two important factors in boosting FDI inflows to power sector. 100 percent FDI is allowed under automatic route in almost all the sub sectors of power sector except the atomic energy. Major foreign investment is made in this sector during 2000 to 2009 is Mauritius with an investment of US$ 4490.96 i.e., 4.24 percent of the total FDI inflows into the country during the period. The estimation of future FDI flow shows a marginal decline in the year 2010. Then from 2011 to 2015 onwards upward trend of FDI was observed.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.233-254
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• 2022

Although there is growing literature evidence of linkages between global value chains (GVCs) and foreign direct investment (FDI), the results are mixed and ambiguous by geographic dimension, time period and sectoral scope. Moreover, bilateral approaches on these connections have been rarely analyzed. In this context, we investigate the effect of bilateral greenfield FDI and cross-border M&A on GVC linkages between host countries and source countries. We match three-year averages of bilateral FDI and UNCTAD-Eora GVC value-added data from 2005 to 2019 between 37 OECD sources and 176 host countries (37 OECD versus 139 non-OECD countries). In the structural gravity model, the empirical specification includes bilateral and country-period fixed effects and uses a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator. We find that greenfield and M&A FDI promote forward and backward GVC linkage for all sectors between OECD countries, whereas greenfield FDI promotes backward GVC linkage between OECD and non-OECD countries. In addition, the results indicate that the degree of influence of GVCs by FDI flows is greater for forward GVC than backward GVC among OECD countries.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.379-402
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a significant difference in impacts decomposed into scale effects and technique effects on $CO_2$ emissions between Greenfield FDI and M&A FDI flows into Korean manufacturing sectors, ultimately leading to clarify the relationship between FDI and environmental pollution. To this end, the research constructed a simultaneous model to analyze coincidental relationship of influence and interactions between each variable. Archival data, spanning the 15 years period from 1995 to 2009, is industry-level panel data on 13 Korean manufacturing sectors, and it is empirically analyzed with three-stage least squares (3SLS) method. Key findings can be summarized into two parts. First of all, Greenfield FDI has a greater impact on increasing industrial gross output, resulting in more $CO_2$ emissions than M&A FDI through scale effects. Secondly, technique effects of FDI have a bigger impact on $CO_2$ emissions than scale effects, implying that this inflow of FDI into Korea contributes positively to the reduction of $CO_2$ emissions. These findings are expected to play a meaningful role in establishing FDI policies with consideration of the environment by giving the implication that different incentives for each FDI type should be considered to maximize the effect of environmental protection.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.335-343
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• 2021

This paper investigates the effect of institutional quality on FDI inflows by using FDI outflows from Asian countries from 2009 to 2017. We used the FDI data from five major Asian economies, which are South Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The gravity model was used to examine the effect of institutional quality on FDI flows. The regression model considers several independent variables, and we select the most appropriate variables by using the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) estimator. We have shown that foreign direct investment from Asian countries depends on the size of home and the partner countries, geographical distance, trade interaction between two countries, economic freedom, labor supply, tariff rate, and capacity of the government. The results of different estimation techniques emphasize that multinational enterprises prefer to invest in those countries which have a higher income, which shows the evidence for Lucas's paradox. The results also show that economic freedom and control of corruption have a positive impact on FDI inwards. The regression results show that better institutional quality in host countries encourages more FDIs from Asian economies. It suggests that the state should control corruption and create a free economic environment to attract FDIs.