• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.21-30
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• 1989

The U.S. response to increased international competition was examined in the present study in order to have more comprehensive understanding of the U.S. textile and clothing market. The method employed to conduct the study was the analysis of the written materials, interview with professionals, and the survey of the actual situations of the U.S. textile and apparel industries. The results are summarized as follows; 1. Official U.S. textile and apparel trade policy has been quite has been quite protective since 1950's. The protective trend has been embodied in Japan Cotton Textile Export Control (reciprocal trade agreement signed by the U.S. and Japan in 1957), Short Term Arrangement Regarding International Trade in Cotton Textiles, Long Term Cotton Textile Arrangement (1962∼1973), and Multi-fiber Arrangement (1974∼). Other governmental programs designed to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. textile and apparel industries include Long-term Textile and Apparel Products Export-expansion Program, and 807 Trade to take labor cost advantage. 2. Along with the quite protective governmental trade policy, the corporate responses have been made such as new sourcing mixes, investment in technology, specialization in the textile and apparel industries, and recent strategies pursued by retailer's. The apparel industry was subject to pressure from imports that increased at moderate levels, and the U.S. textile and apparel industries have made extensive efforts to adjust to the increasing competition from abroad. The textile and apparel industries have taken steps to increase labor productivity through automation, to speed management to create and introduce new products and new methods, and have lowered indirect overhead costs. Several industrywide promotion campaigns have attempted to establish a greater public awareness of international competition and to develop a preference for apparel produced in the United States. 3. Regarding these response of the U.S. and other situations of world textile and apparel trade market, much of the sense of crisis that pervades Korean textile and apparel industries has to do with the problem of adjusting government and corporate policy. Textile and apparel industry of Korea faces on going pressure to reduce costs, improve quality, increase service, develop new markets, diversify, and differentiate itself from its foreign competitors. The strategies that have been adopted in the past have generally worked in the past, but the time has come to adopt strategies that reflect present conditions. If this is not done, then we stand to lose large segments of these industries, which once lost will not easily be regenerated.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.333-353
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• 2007

This paper is to explore that there are structural problems in the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agrement negotiation by examining the Korean FTA policy and to introduce some alternatives to overcome them. The structural problem stems in part from the inefficient system in FTA policy making and its implementation. Most importantly, there is a lack of ex-ante consensus building among stake-holders. As an alternative to the current FTA policy, we suggest two things. First, we argue that an FTA negotiation strategy should correspond to Korea's overall industrial development strategy. Second, the National Assembly should play an important part for enforce of trade policies as a tool for advancing a comprehensive strategic measures.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.83-95
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• 2019

Purpose - This study analyzed the effect of the Trump Government's protectionist trade policies on foreign ownership. Specifically, this study empirically analyzes the hypothesis that foreign ownership will decrease after the Trump Government rather than before the Trump Government. Design/methodology - The hypothesis of this study is based on the expectation that US protection trade policy will negatively affect the profitability of Korean companies. The dependent variable in this study is the foreign ownership ratio, and the independent variable is a dummy variable representing before and after the Trump Government. Multiple regression analysis was performed, including the control variables suggested in previous studies related to foreign ownership. Findings - As a result, foreign ownership increased after the Trump Government rather than before the Trump Government. This study further analyzes whether the main variables affecting foreign investor's decision-making are differences before and after Trump Government. The export ratio, profitability and dividends did not differ before and after Trump Government. However, the level of information asymmetry decreased after the Trump Government than before the Trump Government. This suggests that US protection trade policies do not adversely affect the profitability of Korean companies. However, Korean firms are improving their information environment because US protectionist trade policies can lower profitability and negatively impact capital raising. In this regard, the foreign ownership ratio seems to differ before and after the Trump Government. Originality/value - This study contributes in that it presents data that US protectionist policies can affect Korean corporate governance. This study has implications from the short-term analysis of US protection trade policy.

• American Studies
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.35-65
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• 2021

U.S. lawmakers tend to organize sub-party groups focusing on regions, ideologies, policies, and foreign affairs. Examples include the conservative Freedom Caucus loyal to Trump and the Congressional Black Caucus promoting the interests of African Americans. Then how do these legislative groups affect the making of U.S. foreign policy? Paying special attention to the Korea caucus in U.S. Congress, we have analyzed the sources and processes of congressional caucus and foreign policy and have learned that structures and activities of the caucuses differ from one another. The Korea caucus seems to be a bipartisan group that focuses on issues such as trade, travel, and troubles provoked by Pyongyang. However, the Korea caucus is not really a solid voting bloc for policy alternatives; it is instead more of a constituency-oriented legislative group that prioritizes local interests. This research underscores the need for systematic and comprehensive study of U.S. legislative politics and foreign policy.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.195-211
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• 2021

This paper measures the economic impacts of the U.S. port investment strategies coping with the Panama Canal expansion. Using secondary import data, negative and positive estimates of the impacts were presented in this study. Reduced port activities into the West Coast Customs Districts negatively affect transportation and warehousing industries, among other effects. Still, they have simultaneous positive effects in other states from increased imports resulting from modal shifts and changes in the entry port located in the South and East coasts. This study applied the supply-driven National Interstate Economic Model that measures all interstate trade among the U.S. states to divert foreign imports from 15 Pacific Rim countries. For this purpose, the following assumption was adopted: larger ships using the canal will lead to a redirection of seaborne trade among U.S. (and other) ports and result in secondary effects, e.g., using different freight modes and regional growth spillovers. This study also accounted for the entry point change and significant port investments for foreign trade under alternative scenarios. The choice of ports for international trade depends on decisions about how to minimize multimodal delivery costs. The total direct reduction of transportation and warehousing activities associated with foreign imports in the West Coast ports was estimated at $3.3 billion, leading to total negative effects of $5.8 billion. Total positive impacts from the shift of transportation modes with the choice of an entry port and new warehousing activities for foreign imports in the selected 12 states varied. As expected, states that involved an entry port had the most prominent benefits, but Texas, New York, and New Jersey may be benefited through all the port enhancement projects in the U.S. Also, except for Transportation and Postal, and Warehousing industries, Construction is another dominant positive affected industry of the Canal expansion in the U.S.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.92-102
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• 2018

This paper studied the changes and effects of Korean Trade Policies in Vietnam market after the withdrawal of the TPP from US. Since Trump government is starting, US trade policy has moved to the protectionism method. Nevertheless, Vietnam is expanding its status as an FTA hub, and Vietnam is actively expanding its economic growth by actively implementing foreign capital. Vietnam, however, is likely to lose its position as a hub of FTA after USA's withdrawal from TPP member. So, Korea's trade policy is also expected to change its stance on Vietnam, and Korea is expected to change its policy toward Vietnam. Korea has achieved a lot of accomplishments and growth with free trade and free economic markets, and it has to strengthen its national strength even afterwards. Thus, if the flow of free trade & globalization continues, I would consider how the Korea trade policy change after the U.S.'s withdraws from TPP.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.45-66
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• 2018

This paper measures the extent of comovements in stock returns between Korea and three major countries (China, Japan and the U.S.) using industry-level data for Korea from 2003 to 2016 in the spirit of the international capital asset pricing model. It also examines what drives the comovements between Korea and the three countries. We find that the comovements of Korean stock returns with those of the U.S. and Japan became smaller after the global financial crisis. In contrast, the comovement in stock returns between Korea and China became larger after the crisis. After an additional analysis, we conclude that trade linkage is the main driver of the comovements between Korea and the three countries.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.249-272
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• 2012

This paper examines how a Korean automobile firm price-discriminates between the Korean and the U.S. markets. We argue that a Korean automobile firm's pricing behavior depends on the differences in price elasticity over the segmented markets between the countries. Our findings are that differences in price elasticity may help explain why a medium-class car's price is higher in Korea than that in the U.S. while a small-sized car's price is higher in the U.S. than in Korea, which implies that a Korean automobile firm $3^{rd}$ degree price-discriminates on the same or similar products between Korea and the U.S. This type of $3^{rd}$ degree price discrimination differs from a typical home-bias effect (charging higher prices to domestic consumers) because a small-sized car which is produced domestically sells at higher price abroad. This finding can be added as a source that violates the law of one price.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.39-60
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• 2021

Despite the fast growth and rising importance of digital trade, there still exists no multilateral agreement governing digital trade. Significant differences in policy directions regarding key digital trade issues among the U.S., EU and China are the main stumbling blocks for reaching agreement on the multilateral front. To overcome this deficiency in digital trade rules, there has been active movement among mainly countries in the Asia-Pacific region for rule-making on digital trade. Starting with the CPTPP chapter on E-Commerce in 2018, there has been a series of digital trade rules agreed in bilateral or plurilateral formats, such as the USMCA, USJDTA, DEPA, DEA and RCEP. Korea is currently only member of RCEP, which contains an e-commerce chapter with lower levels of commitment as compared to other digital trade agreements. This paper provides a broad analysis of the recently concluded digital trade agreements, comparing the different coverage of rules, levels of commitment, and rules templates. The analysis aims to provide implications for the desirable direction of rule-making on digital trade and Korea's digital trade strategy.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.93-106
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• 2020

Trade is an important economic activity. In particular, since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the scope of trade has been expanding due to events such as the entry of China into the WTO in 2001, the establishment of a multilateral trading system, mitigation and integration of trade barriers, and the establishment of the free trade agreement (FTA). Despite the expansion of the trade market, however, extreme events such as the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2016 Brexit, and the 2018 US-China trade war have had a direct negative impact on the trade market. Therefore, the present this study analyzed the dependence structure between the international shipping freight rate index, a variable representing trade activities, and the trade uncertainty between the US and China. The following is a summary of the analysis results. First, the US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty and international shipping freight rate index presented a Frank copula and rotated Clayton copula 270° distribution, respectively, showing the same distribution structure for each country. Second, the Kendall's tau correlation revealed a negative dependence between the international shipping freight rate index and US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty. The degree of dependence was greater in the combination of uncertainty in China's trade policy and international shipping freight rates. In other words, the dependence of global demand and trade policy uncertainty confirmed that China was stronger than the US. Finally, the tail dependence results revealed that the US-Chinese trade policy uncertainty and international shipping freight rates were independent of each other. This means that extreme events related to the trade policy uncertainty or international shipping rate index were not affected by each other.