• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.45-74
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• 2024

The import content of export (ICE) has served as an indicator of global integration for several decades. It is defined as the share of imported products embodied in exports and can be interpreted as the relative degree of the utilization of global production network (GPN) over the domestic supply chain (DSC) in terms of 'value-added.' This paper proposes two new indicators of global integration. They are defined as the ratios of imports (foreign products) to gross output (domestic products) generated by exports and can be interpreted as the relative degrees of the utilization of GPN over DSC in terms of 'production.' Both indicators are easy to compute and can be compared between years, between countries, between industries, and between groups of industries. The paper applies the new indicators to the recent edition of the OECD's Input-Output Database. Finally, the paper shows that the recent slowdown in international trade is mostly due to the decrease in the international trade of intermediate goods, with significant implications regarding the future of global integration.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.33-53
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• 2021

The import content of exports (ICE) is defined as the amount of foreign input embodied in one unit of export, and it has been used as a measure of the degree of integration into the global production network. In this paper, we suggest an alternative measure based on the decomposition of gross output and imports into the contributions of final demand terms. This measure considers the manner in which a country manages its domestic production base (gross output) and utilizes the foreign sector (imports) simultaneously and can thus be regarded as a more comprehensive measure than ICE. Korea's input-output tables in 1970-2018 are used in this paper. These tables were rearranged according to the same 26-industry classification so that these measures can be computed with time-series continuity and so that the results can be interpreted clearly. The results obtained in this paper are based on extended time-series data and are expected to be reliable and robust. The suggested indicators were applied to these tables, and, based on the results we conclude that the overall importance of the global economy in Korea's economic strategy has risen and that the degree of Korea's integration into the global production network increased over the entire period. This paper also shows that ICE incorrectly measures the movement of the degree of integration into the global production network in some periods.

• Review of Culture and Economy
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.29-51
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• 2018

The Korea-USA FTA was activated in 2012 and evaluated highly on market-opening among FTA agreements which the Korea government has signed. This paper empirically examines the impact of the Korea-USA FTA on the Korea content industry trade performance with USA. Using ANOVA analysis, the study tested primarily whether there are difference in content exports and imports in a korea-US trade between before and after of Korea-USA FTA in 2012, the year of the entry into force of Korea-USA FTA. Using content industry exports and import data over the period 2007-2015, we find that Korea content export to US after 2012 is significantly different from one before 2012, and there is no difference in import. Based on a regression analysis, we also tested the impact size of Korea content export performance in Korea-USA FTA. The result is that coefficient of FTA dummy variable is not significant, meaning that even though there are some difference in korea content export to US between before and after of Korea-USA FTA, the Korea-USA FTA agreement itself is not a key factor which increase the Korea content export volume to USA market.