• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.23 no.3
• /
• pp.118-137
• /
• 2019

Purpose - As global trade disputes intensify and global trade uncertainty increases due to the prevailing trade protectionism all over the world, mega-FTAs such as the RCEP and CPTPP are suggested as strategic trade policy options for export-driven small open economies, such as Korea. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of Korea's mega-FTA participation and the induced implications for the Korean economy. Design/methodology - We use a multi-region, multi-sector global CGE model, and investigate the different effects of both the US-China and US-EU trade wars on the relative changes in GDP, welfare, and trade under different trade policy regimes; (i) Korea does not participate in any mega-FTA, (ii) Korea participates in the RCEP, and (iii) Korea participates in the CPTPP. Findings - We show, among others, that though industrial effects might be largely varied, the overall enlarging of free trade zones through multilateral mega-FTA participation may contribute significantly to the macroeconomic soundness and stability of Korea, even when global trade protectionism prevails. Under RCEP and CPTPP trade regimes, Korea's GDP may increase even when the global trade environment deteriorates as trade wars occur and intensify between the US and China, or between the US and EU. It is also estimated that RCEP participation increases Korea's GDP, welfare (measured in equivalent variation), and total trade by 1.12%, $1.09 billion, and 2.54%, respectively, while CPTPP participation increases them by 0.19%, $0.92 billion, and 0.13%, respectively. Originality/value - Existing studies usually focus on the direct impacts of mega-FTA participation on macroeconomic variables such as GDP, welfare, and trade, and do not consider the possible buffer effects of a mega-FTA when the global trade environment worsens. In this paper, we analyze and quantify not only the direct impacts of RCEP and CPTPP on the main macroeconomic variables but also the possible buffer effects of the RCEP and CPTPP in the cases of the US-China and US-EU trade wars.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.21-42
• /
• 2023

Purpose - This paper investigates the trade effect of the Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (KCFTA) which coincides with political conflicts between the two countries due to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in Korea. The two events occurred in the same year and both are likely to affect trade between two countries but in opposite directions. Therefore, it is crucial to distinguish between the trade effects from the KCFTA event and those from the THAAD event to evaluate the true FTA effects. However, this would be difficult when using only annual data. Accordingly, ex post studies to examine the trade effects of KCFTA are lacking in trustworthiness while many ex ante studies that conjecture the positive trade effects neglect the THAAD deployment impact. This paper aims to fill that gap. Design/methodology - Given that the KCFTA and THAAD events occurred in the same year but in different months, we use the monthly data from 2000 to 2019 of Korea's exports to bracket this period. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) method within a gravity equation specification that uses hi-dimensional fixed effects to address various endogeneity issues and seasonal effects. We identify the net impact of KCFTA ratification from these two near-simultaneous events to quantify the effects of trade liberalization between these two countries. Findings - After isolating the THAAD effects on trade, the analysis creates a positive and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. In contrast, failing to isolate the THAAD effect produced a negative and statistically significant coefficient estimate of the KCFTA impact. Our results indicate that KCFTA independently increased Korea's exports to China by 10.2%, but that this increase was fully mitigated by the THAAD event. Further, our results verify that unobserved heterogeneity and multilateral resistance are technically difficult to account for in those estimations as that rely solely upon annual data, as this type of data are inadequate to control for the potential for endogeneity. Originality/value - This paper is one of the first studies to carefully evaluate the net trade effects of the KCFTA on Korea's largest trading partner while isolating the impact of simultaneously occurred political events that may influence trade in opposing directions. Our findings indicate that the lack of prior evidence of positive trade effects of the KCFTA when using annual data may be attributed to a failure to identify the impact of each event separately. This analysis supports using the correct modeling specification to avoid misleading conclusions when evaluating any important international trade policy.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.24 no.7
• /
• pp.93-106
• /
• 2020

Purpose - This paper aims to examine the environmental effects of South Korean foreign trade, and the changing relationship between industrial "three wastes" emissions and foreign trade. Design/methodology - Based on time series data of South Korean foreign trade and industrial "three wastes" from 2009 to 2019, a VAR model was used to analyze the long-term internal links and dynamic changes between foreign trade and environmental pollution. Findings - Variance decomposition analysis shows that for the three types of pollutants, self-impact contributes the most to the variance decomposition. It follows that South Korean foreign trade has a certain negative impact on the environment, and this impact has a certain sustainability. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the study on the relationship between foreign trade and environmental pollution. It theoretically proposes a coordinated development path for foreign trade development and green development based on the environmental impact of foreign trade, to provide a reference for the development of collaborative promotion.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2020

Purpose - This paper tries to estimate the effects of China's and Japan's free trade agreement (FTA) by panel generalized least squares (GLS). Design/methodology - The GLS model includes the basic gravity theory and Difference in Difference (DD) method to divide FTA conclusion countries and non-FTA conclusion countries with China and Japan. In order to empirically research the difference between Chinese and Japanese FTAs, we use the Difference in Difference in Difference (DDD) method. Findings - This paper finds the distance variable has more influence on Japanese than Chinese trade. The exchange rate indicates that Chinese trade depends on export and Japanese trade has the structure of re-import; shows that the countries that concluded FTAs with China and Japan have more positive trade effects than those that did not; finds the Chinese FTA promotion effects greater than the Japanese FTA because China had pushed ahead with trade policy since joining the WTO in 2001. Originality/value - This study shows that a single country's FTA and trade policies are an important factor concerning not just the promotion of trade but also the issue of trade conflicts.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.44 no.2
• /
• pp.37-49
• /
• 2019

This paper determines if mandated alcohol health information labelling could be an obstacle to international trade by discussing international trade rules affecting member nations. WTO members could use alcohol labelling rules to protect human health, reduce the consumption of alcohol and provide product information. When a member uses alcohol labelling as a technical regulation or standard, it should comply with TBT Articles 2.2 and 2.4. If a member uses some specific warning messages for their objectives, it should be considered the contribution of the measure, trade restrictiveness, and alternatives. If WTO members want to employ their own alcohol labelling schemes for addressing carcinogenicity, intoxicating effects, dependence potential, effects on children, adolescents and pregnancy, it could be a technical barrier and also create adverse effects on international trade. Therefore, the harms of alcohol are supported by scientific evidence, and for this reason, the international harmonization for alcohol labelling should be discussed openly to prevent negative effects on trade.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.473-495
• /
• 2012

e-Trade should be activated for cost saving and efficient management of trade as it provides bases to actively respond to changes in markets through quick clearance of export and import. It also has tangible and intangible effects in providing services to customers through real-time sharing of information and can help enhance external competition and images through cost saving and efficient management of traders. Therefore, the study suggests that e-trade platforms to construct global trade systems should be executed to maximize economic ripple effects in terms of trade documents and cost, and paradigms of the past trade should be changed into new systems and presents future countermeasures to enhance its ripple effects.

• Economic Analysis
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.30-51
• /
• 2011

Since the previous studies on the effects of trade liberalization implicitly assume that trade liberalization affects economic performance only in any point in time, they inevitably are static. Static evaluations fail to account for cumulative dynamic effects of trade liberalization that affect continuously economic performance. This paper tries to fill this gap of the previous studies in this field, estimating cumulative effects of trade liberalization on economic performance by employing an dynamic version of empirical model. One of important empirical issue is controlling bias from endogeneity. To resolve this problem, this paper employes system GMM that uses lagged first-differences as instruments for level equations and lagged levels as instruments for first-differences equations. It improves upon cross-section estimators because it controls for the potential bias induced by the omission of industry-specific effects and the endogeneity of all regressors. This study investigates the effects of trade liberalization in Korean manufacturing for the period from 1988 to 2005 and finds that cumulative dynamic effects of trade liberalization are present and bigger than static effects.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.22 no.9
• /
• pp.163-170
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to find the differences in fair trade practice behavior, according to socio-demographic variables and to analyze the effects of psycho-social variables on fair trade practice behavior. This study includes the psycho-social variables as materialism, altruism, ethical identity, and perceived consumer effectiveness. The results of this study are as follows. First, the mean score of consumers' fair trade practice behavior was 4.12 on a 7-point scale, which means that respondents performed fair trade practice behavior at the middle level. Second, in terms of socio-demographic variables, there was a significant difference only in an age. Third, fair trade practice behavior had positive correlations with each of altruism, ethical identity, and perceived consumer effectiveness. Finally, regression analyses showed that altruism, ethical identity, and perceived consumer effectiveness had positive effects on fair trade practice behavior, whereas materialism had a negative effect on fair trade practice behavior.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.46 no.6
• /
• pp.1-19
• /
• 2021

This paper examines the impact of sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) and technical barriers to trade (TBT) on Korean exports, taking global value chains (GVC) participation into consideration. Using product-level import data from 2000 to 2014, we find heterogeneous effects of importers' SPS and TBT on Korean exports depending on the degree and position of GVC participation. According to the results, trade restrictive effects of SPS and TBT are smaller for industries that are more deeply involved in GVC. However, trade restrictive effects are greater for industries located at a relatively upstream production stage in GVC.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
• /
• v.61
• /
• pp.165-190
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to measure the trade insurance's macroeconomic effects by analyzing the causality between major economic variables(GDP per capita, market interest rate, inflation, unemployment rate, exchange rate) and trade insurance variable. I conducted empirical analyses using First-difference GMM(Generalized Method of Moments), System GMM and Panel-VAR Model, with panel data from 11 countries(Korea, United States, Japan, BRICs, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam) between 1992 and 2011. There are several important findings. Above all, Trade insurance is positively and significantly related to GDP. This results show that trade insurance serves to increase economic growth. In other words, trade insurance leads to economic growth by helping increase GDP per capita. Especially, trade insurance negatively related to unemployment rate, it is for sure that trade insurance contribute to decrease unemployment rate. And trade insurance helps control of inflation. It is also confirmed that trade insurance contributes to price stability, which in turn serves to stabilize the overall economy. And this research finds as uncertainty in the market increases, seen it as increase of exchange rate, increasing trade insurance supply is stabilize the exchange rate.