• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.25-44
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• 2021

Purpose - This research aims to provide empirical evidence that highlights the importance of imported intermediate goods in long-term economic growth. To this end, this paper develops an index that measures the productivity gains associated with a country's intermediate goods imports using highly disaggregated trade data. Design/methodology - The basic hypothesis is that countries sourcing higher-productivity (or higher-quality) inputs from developed economies derive a larger benefit from foreign R&D. To explore this hypothesis, standard cross-country growth regressions are performed using the highly disaggregated data from the United Nations (UN) Commodity Trade Statistics Database (COMTRADE). To address the endogeneity issue, I apply an instrumental variable (IV) approach. Findings - The results of this study demonstrate that the index predicts subsequent economic growth in middle- and low-income countries. This finding is consistent with previous studies that have argued that developing countries can achieve substantial productivity gains by importing intermediate inputs from developed countries. By contrast, there is no evidence of a significant association between the index and economic growth in high-income countries. Originality/value - This paper contributes to our understanding of the causal relationship between international trade and economic growth. From an economic policy perspective, the results suggest that developing countries with limited technology endowment can boost growth from input-tariff liberalization.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.65-73
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• 2002

This research is to reveal an aspect of costume culture interchange in the relationship of the early Chosun Dynasty, by considering the imported goods from Japan, of the trading goods derived by the trade diplomacy between the two countries in the early Korea-Japan relationship in the medieval era. The research results are as follows. A good-neighbor Policy in the early Chosun Dynasty was established by a link of a barbarian ban policy to blockade the frequent intrusion by Japanese barbarians. The exchange was the form of presenting a return present in return for a tribute to the Chosun Dynasty from the Japanese envoy, which has a polycentric characteristic. Pusanpo, Naipo, and Yumpo were designated as the open ports, which played a pivotal role in the Korea-Japan exchange. In trading goods between Korean and Japan. the imported goods from Japan to Korea were a wide variety of items primarily such as dyes, mordant, medicines, steel, spicers, etc. In particular, Somok used as a red mordant, which were intermediate goods to Southeast Asia, was the most heavily-traded items of imported goods from Japan. It had been consumed primarily as a raw material making the costume suit of the royal family and the aristocracy. The increased import of Somok was derived from a thought of preferred red color by our people. As its inflow was increased. the costumes tended to be luxurious In early Chosun Dynasty and resulted in social issues. This active trading from the early Chosun Dynasty caused from the communication of the Japanese envoy. In addition the study of the trading provided an opportunity that can glance at an aspect of the costume culture, though It was fractionary.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.97-121
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• 2016

This study evaluates industrial competitiveness of 34 industries in the 41 countries in terms of several trade indices such as value-added RCA(VRCA) and value added intra-industry trade(VIIT). Conclusions are as follows: First, China is still showing week evidence to replace or overtake Korea in terms of VRCA. Second, it is not supportive of the assertion that the gap between Japan and South Korea had widened in the 1995-2011 period. Third, Korea's exports pattern in the manufacturing sector has shifted from the one featured by developing countries(re-exportation of final goods produced using imported intermediate inputs) to that of the developed (exportation of intermediate goods). According to dynamic panel analysis regressing the RCA gap on the IIT gap, intermediate-goods RCA and the market share gap, the estimated coefficient of the gap between value-added IIT and gross IIT is 0.253 and statistically significant at the 2% level. This implies that increases in IIT or intermediate-goods trade to sustain the global competitiveness are the main reasons for the gap between value-added RCA and gross RCA.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.213-237
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• 2010

Duty refund taken exports of raw materials in the manufacture of goods for import duties paid, and refunds, as a system, enhance the price competitiveness of domestic exporters to promote exports is established for them. The duty drawback system is consumed in the production of export goods levied on imported inputs does not exceed the level of reimbursement is established within the WTO rules do not restrict the export support policy is one of. Korea-EU FTA negotiations is a drawback in the ongoing maintenance of claims, while the EU claims that the duty drawback system can not be negotiated until the end of the field of focus is discussed. Intermediate goods imports to Korea is a higher percentage was pointed out the importance of duty drawback, EU FTA, the duty drawback is not a party to remain exporters of raw materials, such as 3rd party can not go back because the benefits were opposed to. The final one-EU Concessions for the current duty drawback system was to maintain continuous.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.71-97
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• 2015

This study examines the effects of several factors indicating economic openness-imported intermediate goods, total imports, IFDI (inward foreign direct investment), and foreign ownership-on regular, irregular jobs and the ratio of irregular employment to regular employment. Findings revealed that imported intermediate inputs and IFDI affected neither regular nor irregular job figures. However, an increase in total imports led to a decrease in the number of irregular jobs without affecting regular full time jobs, leading to a decrease in the ratio of irregular jobs to regular jobs. On the other hand, changes in foreign ownership structure had a contrary effect, that is, a decrease in the number of regular jobs and an increase in irregular ones, and, thus, an increase in the ratio of irregular jobs to regular jobs. Overall results showed that a rise in imports results in depressed overall employment, irregular employment in particular, while more IFDI results in more irregular jobs replacing regular ones, effectively exacerbating job insecurity. The implication of this analysis is that greater economic openness may have a negative impact on the South Korean labor market overall.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.47-62
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• 2016

This paper is to set up the empirical model in order to estimate industrial markup and to analyze the determinants for industrial markup by estimating the factor price elasticities of markup in the Korean manufacturing industries using the autoregressive distributed model. The import price elasticities of markup were estimated to be -1.025, -0.176, and -0.260 respectively in Machinery products, Chemical products, and Metallics which proved to have higher ratios of imported intermediate goods to industrial output. The interest elasticities of markup were also estimated to be -0.165, -0.147, and -0.210 respectively in Chemical products, Metallics, and Machinery products which are capital-intensive industries. Thus, the paper suggests that both import price index and interest rate have had more decisive effects on the changes in industrial markup in the Korean manufacturing industries, in particular, since the foreign currency crisis beginning in late 1997.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.102-116
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• 2022

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates the relationship between firm productivity and importing intermediate inputs in the Korean manufacturing sector. Design/methodology - This paper tests the two related hypotheses on the relationship between importing and productivity for a sample of Korean manufacturing firms. We test the self-selection hypothesis by comparing pre-entry levels of productivity between importers and non-importers. We test the learning-by-importing hypothesis by employing propensity score matching with differencein-differences approach. Findings - Future importers are more productive than future non-importers years before they start to import, which supports the self-selection hypothesis. In contrast, there is no strong evidence for learning-by-importing. Originality/value - This paper is the first study to explore the relationship between importing and firm-level productivity for Korean firms. The results have an important implication on trade policies to lower or raise trade barriers in imported inputs.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.81-96
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• 2007

This paper analyses the Korean information and communication technology supply side across the economy using 1995, 2000 and 2003 input-output tables. Input-output analysis considers inter-industry relations in an economy, depicting how the output of one industry goes to another industry where it serves as an input, and thereby makes one industry dependent on another both as customer of output and as supplier of Inputs. It can be evaluated that the recent growth of Korean ICT sector has come from the development of communication service and equipment industry and software industry. Although the high performance and positive revealed comparative advantages in ICT manufacturing sector, the value added and employment in that sector are not satisfactory. It may reflect in part high portion of imported intermediate goods in ICT manufacturing. However, it is fortunate that ICT services, which accounted for relatively high value added, induce the development of ICT manufacturing and follow strong export performance. Moreover, it is expected that the software sector with high value added and employment will be a major driver of ICT growth.

• 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.14 no.3
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• pp.3-21
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• 1992

By localizing the production of core parts and intermediate goods previously imported from Japan, Korean firms have been striving to increase their market share and profit in the final goods market in which Japanese firms are dominating. Korean producers' efforts, however, have often been thwarted by Japanese suppliers' "strategic" behavior. This competitive strategy involves Japanese exporters supplying parts and intermediate goods at very high prices until Korean firms must locally develop them, and then setting the prices far below the previous level so that the profitability of localization is dramatically reduced, or even means a loss for the Korean manufacturer. This paper intends to explain the strategic behavior of Japanese firms through the concepts of strategic interactions and joint economies. Strategic interactions can be aggressive or accommodating depending on whether competitors are dealing with strategic substitutes or complements. Joint economies exist in multi-stage competition when competition in the previous state favorably influences "profits" of the ensuing stage. Competiton between Korean and Japanese firms (a two-stage game involving production and technology rivalries) can be characterized by joint economies and strategic substitutes: joint economies since technological improvement results in more profits in the production stage; and strategic substitutes since an increase in marginal profits of one firm brings about a decrease in marginal profits of the other in a duopolitic production stage. This implies that the flood of "low price" Japense substitutes is an almost "natural" phenomenon in the context of the duopolistic market described in this paper. In the technology competition stage, on the other hand, technology development and technology transfer can be either strategic complements or substitutes. This implies that, in typical comparative static analyses, the effect of changes in exogenous variables cannot be expected a priori. Thus it becomes very difficult to determine the desirability of applying various policy measures such as countervailing duties, R&D subsidies, and creating demand for localized products. For these reasons, it is indeed likely that the measures suggested as means of circumventing the strategic behavior of Japanese firms (and enhancing technological development of Korean firms) may not work.