• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.217-230
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• 2019

This study investigates the impacts of international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) on income distribution both nationally as well as provincially in Vietnam. This study uses panel data of 63 provinces in Vietnam for the period of 2008-2016 and a time series dataset from 1992 to 2016. We found the following results. First, the income distribution is significantly affected by per capita income. When we consider the Kuznets hypothesis, the intra-provincial income inequality of Vietnam's 63 provinces follows a regular U-shaped relationship. In contrast, the income distribution in Vietnam exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship between the Gini coefficient and per capita income. Second, the inward FDI tends to reduce income gaps in each province through the employment of predominantly low-skilled workers. FDI, however, seems to increase income inequality throughout Vietnam. This result is potentially due to the strong concentration of FDI into a very few areas. Third, the effect of trade openness exhibits a decrease in inequality both within each province and in the whole country of Vietnam.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.247-267
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• 2022

Since the Korea-Vietnam FTA was signed in 2015, trade between the two countries has increased rapidly, accounting for 6.8% of Vietnam's exports and 17.9% of its imports in 2020. The two countries show differences in import and export items. Vietnam has a high export ratio of agri-food products or products with the low-middle level of technology, while Korea has a high export ratio of products with the upper-middle level. The purpose of this study is to present implications by analyzing changes in trade competitiveness between Vietnam and Korea by technology level (2002-2020). For this purpose, statistics from UN Comtrade were used, and methodologies such as market share, Export Market Share (EMS), Trade Specialization Index (TSI), Intra-Industrial Trade Index (IIT), Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), and BCG Matrix were used. The results of the study are as follows. First, when looking at Vietnam's trade structure with South Korea by technology level, it was analyzed that the trade deficit widened as it showed a competitive disadvantage in high-tech, ICT, middle- and low-level technology items, excluding low-end technology items. Second, in terms of market share, the market share of Vietnamese products in the Korean market is continuously increasing, while the Korean market share in Vietnam is gradually decreasing from 2017. Third, Vietnam's export competitiveness to Korea by technology level shows that low-level technologies are competitive, but they are inferior in competitiveness in all other technology level, and especially in areas with high technology level, the level of inferiority is high. In conclusion, the trade relationship between Vietnam and Korea has maintained a mutually complementary rather than competitive relationship, which is expected to continue in the future.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.205-220
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• 2019

This article recapitulates the recent changes in trade laws, which may be accentuated due to the intriguing emergence of fortified protectionism and Mega FTAs. It points out the need to formulate not only the corporate strategy for enhancing the product differentiation and architectural capabilities but also the public policy, which comprises the industrial adjustment policy to cope with possible negative impulses caused by the digital trade and foreign direct investment. It is imperative for Korea to facilitate the alignment between corporate strategy and industrial adjustment policy as an effective means of enhancing industrial structure by nurturing those linkage effects between relevant forward and backward industries. Given the drastically volatile trade norms of multi-track trade policies, it may be a pivotal momentum for Korea to pursue a paradigm shift of its trade policy with a prime objective of achieving such an alignment between corporate strategy and industrial adjustment policy, which affords increased value-added and the further development of product or generic technology instead of resorting to the misuses and abuses of economies of scale and production technology for the maximization of export amount.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.177-190
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• 2022

This study is designed to identify the differences in the types and importance of trade claims at the national level. For analysis data, abstracts of arbitration and court judgments published on the website of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law are collected and used. The target countries are China and the United States, with 102 cases from China and 59 cases from the United States. By applying topic modeling techniques to the collection decisions of China and the United States, trade claims are categorized, and the importance of each type is identified using the network centrality index derived through semantic network analysis. The analysis results are as follows. First, the main types of trade claims were the same for both the United States and China: product nonconformity, delivery issues, and payments. However, in China, the order of product nonconformity > delivery issues > payments was important, and in the United States, payments > product nonconformity > delivery issues were found to be important. This study is significant in that it presents a strategic trade claim management plan using a quantitative methodology.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.227-258
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• 2020

The field of international management has consistently been recognized as one of the key research pillars in the grand scope of trade studies. In this paper, we conducted critical review on literatures of international management, which were published in Korea Trade Review from 1975 to 2019. Especially, this paper analyzed 'when did research results in the field of international management appear in Korea Trade Review for the first time?', 'how many papers in the field of international management have been published in Korea Trade Review so far?', 'what topics have the papers in the field of international management published in Korea Trade Review mainly described?', and 'what research methods have the papers in the field of international management published in Korea Trade Review adopted?' In particular, this paper compared the similarities and differences between the research issues in leading global journals and those of international management research papers published in Korea Trade Review. In addition, some implications for future research would be suggested regarding what characteristics of international management studies will be meaningful to be published in the Korea Trade Review.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.27-53
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• 2013

In this paper, we look at the relationship between international trade and the rule of law, using the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, which include index figures on human rights, limits on government powers, transparency and regulatory efficiency. Based on regression analyses using the rule of law index figures and international trade figures (merchandise trade, service trade, exports and imports as percentage of GDP,) international trade and basic human rights seem to have little relationship; but trade has a close positive relationship with strong order and security. Somewhat surprisingly, regulatory transparency and effective implementation seems to have little or no effect on international trade and vice versa. International trade shows a clear positive relationship with the country's criminal justice system, but the relationship with the civil justice system is not as clear as such. For regulatory implementation and civil justice, services trade positively affect these institutions, but these institutions in turn affect exports more strongly than services trade. Finally, the effect of trade on rule of law is stronger on a medium to long term (10-20 year) time horizon.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.291-305
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• 2022

In this study, the volume of Pohang Port was predicted. All cargo of Pohang port, iron ore, steel, and bituminous coals were selected as prediction targets. SARIMA, Prophet, and Neural Prophet were used as analysis methods. The predictive power of each model was verified, and a predictive model with high performance was used to predict the volume of goods in Pohang port. As a result of the analysis, it was found that Neural Prophet showed the highest performance in all predictive power. As a result of predicting the future volume of goods until August 2027 using Neural Prophet, it was found that the volume of all items in Pohang port was decreasing. In particular, it was analyzed that the decline in steel cargo was steep. In order to increase the volume of cargo at Pohang port, it is necessary to diversify the cargo handled at Pohang port and check the policy of increasing the volume of cargo.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.23-43
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• 2020

This study aims at analyzing the interactions between two of the most significant trade stakeholders in Korea, the Trade Ministry and the Legislature, using text network analysis. Tackling seven Action and Plan Reports for Requests from Parliamentary Inspection released by the National Assembly, this paper conducts a topic modelling analysis, particularly focusing on the reports for the three trade-related institutes: the MOTIE headquarter, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency. According to the analysis, such traditional topics of the MOTIE as enterprise, industry, business, management, development were frequently appeared in the reports. Trade-related topics including export, trade, commerce, investment, overseas, domestic, dispute, cooperation, efficiency, negotiation, service, promotion were repeatedly shown. Lastly, a case study on 2019 Parliamentary Inspection Report showed specific trade-related topics and relevant contents that raised issues in that year. This analysis implies that the text data driven from the Parliamentary Inspection Reports between the MOTIE and the National Assembly, can be established as so called 'trade policy information system' which are valuable not only for the two but also the rest of the trade stakeholders in Korea.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.95-112
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• 2021

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) signed by the 15 Asian countries in 2020 forms the world's largest free trading bloc. Using data for the period 2001 - 2019, this study evaluates global value chains (GVCs) among the RCEP members, with a primary focus on GVC backward participation which involves imports intermediates embodied in exports. This study finds that the RCEP's intra-regional linkages, particularly with the ASEAN members, are significantly higher than its extra-regional linkages in trade and GVC backward participation. Among the individual RCEP member countries, Korea is found to have a particularly strong intra-regional linkages with the ASEAN members in both trade and GVC participation.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2021

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is designed to intensify bilateral trade between China and the BRI countries through the improvement of transportation connections. However, little research has empirically investigated the impacts of this policies on the trade patterns. This paper attempts to evaluate the impacts of BRI on the trade patterns of Tanzania. Our study extends the original gravity model of bilateral trade by adding GDP per capita, population and proximity as the explanatory variables. According to our research, we observed that the BRI significantly impacted the Tanzania's trade patterns, as it led to the increase of bilateral trade flow between Tanzania and China more importantly between Tanzania and its adjacent countries. It indicates that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has boosted Tanzania's trade exclusively, hence the Tanzania's export sector earns greater trading potential with the adjacent countries.