• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.174-196
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• 2021

Even though Sino-American relations of the Donald Trump era were perceived as predominately confrontational, with a symbolic trade war between the two, the scale of economic interdependencies between the United States and China results in either a need for collaboration or in serious losses on both sides in the case of lack of cooperation. The paper aims at analyzing economic relations between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China at the time of the Trump presidency. Analysis is based on the complex interdependence theory of Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. The main hypothesis analyzed in the paper states: Asymmetric interdependence between the People's Republic of China and the United States of America limits the scope, intensity and length of a trade war. For the sake of the paper, economic interdependence will be analyzed. Apart from the reference to the state of the art, the document analysis and descriptive statistics are to be applied in the paper.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.45-62
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• 2022

Purpose - Using unexpected changes in geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula as a quasi-natural experimental setting, we examine whether and how geopolitical risks travel across borders through firm-level imports and exports linkages. We also test whether the effects are driven by either imports or exports and assess whether firms can effectively hedge themselves against geopolitical risks. Design/methodology - We focus on a series of unanticipated geopolitical events taken place in Korea in 2018. Making use of the shocks to geopolitical climate, we identify five milestone events toward peace talks. We employ the event studies methodology. We examine heterogenous firm-level stock price reactions around key event dates depending on firms' exposure to geopolitical risks. As a measure of firms' exposure to geopolitical risks in Korea, we utilize a text-based measure of firm-level trade links. When a firm announces and discusses its purchase of inputs from Korea or sales of outputs to Korea in their annual disclosure filings, we define a firm to have a trade relationship with Korea and have exposure to Korean geopolitical risks. Similarly, we use a measure of a firm's hedging policies based on a firm's textual mention of the use of foreign exchange derivatives in their annual disclosure. Findings - We find that U.S. firms that have direct trade links to Korea gained significantly more value when the intensity of geopolitical risks drops compared to firms without such trade links to Korea. The effects are pronounced for firms purchasing inputs from or selling outputs to Korea. We find that the effectiveness of foreign exchange hedging against geopolitical risks is limited. Originality/value - We document the international transmission of geopolitical uncertainty through trade linkages. Export links as well as import links serve as important nexus of transmission of geopolitical risks across borders. Hedging strategies involving foreign-exchanges derivatives do not seem to insulate firms again geopolitical risks. With the recent movements of localization and reshuffling of the global value chain, our results suggest a significant impact of geopolitical risks in Korea on the construction of the global value chain.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.139-158
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• 2023

Purpose - The study of co-movements between stock markets is a crucial area of finance and has recently received much interest in a variety of studies, especially in international finance. Stock market co-movements are a major phenomenon in financial markets, but they are not necessarily independent of the real market. Several studies support the idea that bilateral trade linkages significantly impact stock market correlations. Motivated by this perspective, this study investigates whether real market integration due to trade agreements brings about financial market integration in terms of stock market co-movement. Design/methodology - Over the 10 free trade agreements (FTAs) signed by the United States, using a dynamic conditional correlations (DCC) multivariate GARCH (MGRACH) model, we empirically measure the degree of integration by finding DCCs between the US market and the partner country's market. We then track how these correlations evolve over time and compare the results before and after trade agreements. Findings - According to the empirical results, there are positive return spillover effects from the US market to eight counterpart equity markets, except Jordan, Morocco, and Singapore. Especially Mexico, Canada, and Chile have large return spillover effects at the 1% significance level. All partner countries of FTAs generally have positive correlations with the US over the entire period, but the size and variance are somewhat different by country. Meanwhile, not all countries that signed trade agreements with the United States showed the same pattern of stock market co-movement after the agreement. Korea, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Singapore show increasing DCC patterns after trade agreements with the US. However, Canada, Australia, Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco do not show different patterns before and after trade agreements in DCCs. These countries generally have the characteristic of relatively lower or higher co-movements in stock markets with the US before the signing of the FTAs. Originality/value - To our knowledge, few studies have directly examined the linkages between trade agreements and stock markets. Our approach is novel as it considers the problem of conditional heteroscedasticity and visualizes the change of correlations with time variations. Moreover, analyzing several trade agreements based on the United States enables the results of cross-country pairs to be compared. Hence, this study provides information on the degree of stock market integration with countries with which the United States has trade agreements, while simultaneously allowing us to track whether there have been changes in stock market integration patterns before and after trade agreements.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.61-90
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• 2016

This study aims to identify the sources of productivity change in export manufacturing firms. After estimating the Malmquist productivity index, a panel regression was used to calculate the source of productivity change. Upon conducting a literature review of this field, six variables were selected as explanatory variables. The results of an analysis of 355 export manufacturing firms operating from 2009 through 2015 are as follows: First, both innovation activity and total assets had a positive impact on productivity change. However, employment cost intensity, equity ratio, and current ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in export manufacturing firms. Second, innovation activity and intangible assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity, selling expense intensity, and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in large export manufacturing firms. Third, innovation activity had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in small and medium export manufacturing firms. Fourth, intangible assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity, selling expense intensity, and current ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in export manufacturing firms listed on the Korea Composite Stock Price Index. Fifth, innovation activity and total assets had a positive impact on productivity change, but employment cost intensity and equity ratio had a negative impact on productivity change in manufacturing firms listed on the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. The managerial implications of this study are also discussed.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.23-31
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• 2022

The study investigates the effect of trade openness on the economic growth of agricultural countries. The information of export, import, gross domestic product (GDP), Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF), and population of 72 agrarian nations generated by the World Bank from 2011 until 2020 is used for data examination. Then, before panel data analysis, a preferred model is chosen from among common-effects, fixed-effects, and random effects. The best model turns out to be a fixed-effect model. The result reports that from 2011 to 2020; 16 out of 72 nations have succeeded in experiencing positive economic growth, the value of GFCF was US$ 2,859.04 billion, and later grew by 19 percent to US$ 3,393.73 billion, the population tends to increase continuously year by year, and 2 out of 72 countries experienced export plus import exceed their GDP. Moreover, trade openness is positively associated with economic growth, with a coefficient of 3.81. Besides that, an increase in GFCF may boost economic growth by approximately 3.32 percent. On the contrary, one percent additional population significantly delivers around 25.46 percent negative economic growth. To sum up, the higher intensity of products or services sold and bought abroad may enhance the economic performance.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.3-24
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• 2010

This study aims to identify the determinants on the implementation level of e-Trade of Chinese exporters in Shandong Province, China. From the review of previous studies, a research model and six hypotheses were set up and tested by the multiple regression analysis with total 127 effective survey data. Among the company characteristics, the company size was statistically significant to the utilization range and the utilization level. But unlike former studies in Korea, the utilization range showed the (-) mark. On the other hand, the innovative attitude of CEO didn't show statistical significance to both the utilization range and the utilization level. Among the information characteristics, the IT infrastructure was not statistically significant to both the utilization range and the utilization level. On the other hand, the education and training of technical personnel didn't have a significant effect on the utilization range, but it had a statistically significant effect on the utilization level. Among the external environment, the intensity of competition had a statistically significant effect on both the utilization range and the utilization level. In summary, the implementation level of e-Trade of Chinese exporters in Shandong Province, China is still behind that of Korea. But the fact that the small and medium-sized Chinese exporters are using Internet more actively than large companies suggests some implications for those of Korea.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1217-1230
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• 2021

Using a multinomial logit model with the panel-data set of Vietnam manufacturing firms, this paper investigates the impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) - small and medium enterprises (SMEs) linkages and other factors on SMEs' participation in the global value chain (GVC). We consider GVC firms are those engaging in any of the three modes including (i) using domestic inputs to export (D2E), (ii) using imported inputs to produce for the domestic market (I2P), (iii) using imported inputs to export (I2E). We discover that FDI-SME linkages statistically encourage Vietnamese SMEs to integrate into the GVC via I2P and I2E, while no statistical association between FDI-SME linkage and D2E participation is found. GVCs participation likelihood is also positively correlated with the introduction of new product introduction. The establishment of firms' production facilities in industrial zones and foreign ownership are both reported to be significantly decisive factors to SMEs' decisions on GVC participation. Besides, there is a strong association between firms' attributes, i.e. employment, capital intensity as well as financial access, and their participation in the GVC. Local governance quality (proxied by the Provincial Competitiveness Index) and the share of skilled labor at the province-level can facilitate firms' integration into GVCs, while greater market concentration may be a hurdle to such potential.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.1-22
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• 2022

Purpose - This paper empirically investigates the effect of a rise in the global value chain (GVC) on the industry-level efficiency of resource allocation (based on plant-level inefficiency measures) in Korea, with a focus on various channels through which a rise in the GVC can increase competition among firms and thus induce resources to be allocated more efficiently across firms. Design/methodology - We empirically investigate the relationship between the industry-specific importance of GVC and the industry-level allocative inefficiency that is measured as the dispersion of the plant-level marginal revenue of capital (MRK) as in Hsieh and Klenow's (2009) influential model. We compute MRK dispersion for industries sorted by various characteristics that are closely related to firm/industry sensitivity to the GVC. In other words, we compute the average industry-level MRK dispersion for industries sorted by industry-specific importance of GVC and compute the difference between the two groups of industries (higher vs. lower than the median GVC); we also calculate the difference between industries sorted by industry-specific export (import) intensity. This is our difference-in-difference estimate of the MRK dispersion associated with the GVC for the export (import)-intensive industry versus the non-export (non-import)-intensive industry. This difference-in-difference estimate of the MRK dispersion conditional vs. unconditional on firm-level productivity is then calculated further (triple-difference estimate). Findings - A rise in GVC is associated with a decrease in the MRK dispersion in the export-intensive industry compared to the non-export-intensive industry. The same is true for industries that rely heavily on imports versus those that do not (i.e., import intensive vs. non-intensive). Furthermore, the reduction in the MRK dispersion in the export-intensive industry associated with an increase in the GVC is disproportionately greater for high-productivity firms. In contrast, the negative relationship between GVC and MRK dispersion in the import-intensive industry is disproportionately smaller for high-productivity firms. Originality/value - Existing studies focus on the relationship between GVC and aggregate output, exports, and imports at the country level. We investigate detailed firm/industry-level mechanisms that determine the relationship between GVC, trade, and productivity. Using the plant-level data in South Korea, we investigate how GVC is related to the cross-firm MRK dispersion, an important measure of allocative inefficiency, based on Hsieh and Klenow's (2009) influential economic theory. This is the first study to provide plant-level evidence of how GVC affects MRK dispersion. Furthermore, we examine how the relationship between GVC and MRK-dispersion varies across export intensity, import intensity, and firm-level productivity, providing insight into how GVC can affect firms' exposure to competition in the global market differently depending on market conditions and thus generate trade-related productivity gains.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.39-55
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• 2022

Purpose - This study empirically examines the effect of the Korean government export promotion program (EPP) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) export performance using firm-level data. Unlike most previous studies that investigated some specific samples of firms, this study analyzes a vast amount of SME data of the Korean Small and Medium Business Administration over the period 2005 to 2008. Design/methodology - An endogeneity problem arises when a firm's probability of being selected is correlated with the likelihood of successfully implementing EPPs. To control for the endogeneity of the EPPs in a relatively short-period sample, we employ 2-Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) RE-Tobit and bivariate Tobit procedure. Findings - Analyses show that Korean government EPPs have positive significant effects on SME exports. Empirical results also show that SME export activities are significantly encouraged by R&D investment and capital intensity, but not obviously by labor productivity. Originality/value - This study provides evidence that SME capital intensity, R&D investment, and the number of workers are significant determinants to SME exporting activities, whereas per worker labor cost and employee education are not. These results imply that even for SMEs, firm size is a major factor in promoting exporting activities.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.45-50
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• 2020

Purpose: This paper examines the theoretical grounds for the disclosure of the Korea Fair Trade Commission. Three central measures of the disclosure are scrutinized: The interconnected status of affiliate companies, the important matters of private affiliates, and the large internal transactions. Contemplating on three measures, respectively, we review the rationale and derive policy implications. Research design, data, and methodology: Collecting the data of violation rates and remedial measures, we analyze the intensity of the disclosure enforcement. These statistics are critically reviewed by the economic literature of mandatory disclosure. Results: Statistics evince that the Korea Fair Trade Commission has enforced the regulatory disclosure quite successfully. Violation rates of the disclosure has declined from the outset. It demonstrates that the Korea Fair Trade Commission has enforced those measures satisfactorily for about a decade. But we cannot ascertain empirically whether the regulatory disclosures are socially and economically beneficial. To evaluate the effect of the regulatory disclosures precisely, we need a further empirical investigation. Conclusions: Despite the lack of policy evaluation, this study suggests complementary measures for current disclosures. First, disclosure of executive compensation in privately held subsidiaries must be introduced. Second, the controlling shareholder/manager should be responsible for information disclosure on foreign subsidiaries.