• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.127-137
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• 2021

Mainland China area has been a long-term, major trade rival and partner of Taiwan, accounting for more than 40% of Taiwan's total annual trade exports, and so Sino-US trade friction is expected to have a significant impact on Taiwan's economy in the future. This study focuses on major bad news of Sino-US trade frictions and how it generates short-term shocks for Taiwan's equity market and fear sentiment. It further explores the mutual interpretation relationship between price changes such as VIX, Taiwan's stock market index, and the VIX ETF to identify which factors have information leadership as leading indicators. The study period covers 750 trading days from 2017/1/3 to 2020/1/31. This study finds that, when a policy news is announced, the stock market index falls significantly, the change in the trading price (net value) of the VIX ETF rises significantly, and the overprice rate significantly drops, but VIX does not, showing that fear sentiment exists in the Taiwan's market. The net value of the VIX ETF shows an information advantage as a leading indicator. This study suggests that, when the world's two largest economies clash over trade, the impact on Taiwan's equity market is inevitable, and that short-term fear effects will arise.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.1-18
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• 2022

Purpose - Recent international studies have largely focused on measuring the welfare gains from increased trade varieties. To adequately capture the variety gains, it is of importance to estimate the elasticity of substitution between varieties of trade goods because it is one of the key parameters to determine the magnitude of the variety gains. Using the import data of South Korea, this paper shows that the elasticities vary substantially across the estimators, which affects the magnitude of the gains from trade. Design/methodology - Empirical studies working on the gains from trade variety have heavily depended on the estimation methods for the elasticity of substitution between trade varieties, developed by Feenstra (1994) and refined by Broda and Weinstein (2006). We estimate and compare the estimated elasticities for 8,945 HS 10 goods of South Korea, obtained from the three estimation methods: Feenstra's weighted least square (F-WLS), Feenstra's feasible generalized least square (F-FGLS), and Broda and Weinstein's feasible generalized least square (BW-FGLS). Findings - Using the estimated elasticities from the F-FGLS, considered as a suitable estimator, A typical Korean consumer saved 228 dollars per year by the greater access to new import varieties. This leads to gains from imported variety of 2.06% of GDP. In 2017, a typical Korean consumer would gain by 611 dollars, compared with 2000. China is the country with the largest contribution (28.4%), followed by Japan and USA. About 50% of all the welfare gains come from the imports from the three main trade partners. The Southern Asian countries are more important to the South Korean welfare gain than the Western European countries. Originality/value - Existing studies have chosen one of the methods without any criterion for the choice and then estimated the elasticities of substitution between varieties of trade goods. This paper focuses on the estimation specifications and methods as the cause of the disparity in estimated elasticities and welfare gains from trade variety. According to the Ramsey RESET and White tests, the F-FGLS estimates are relatively better compared to the F-WLS and BW-FGLS estimates. As another contribution, this paper provides the first measure of the welfare gains from trade variety for South Korea, using the estimated elasticities of substitution between trade varieties.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.11
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• pp.607-617
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• 2020

This study investigates the causal relationship between public and private external debt and economic growth in developing countries. Our model includes 18 selected Asian developing and transition economies from 1995 thru 2019. We employ the dynamic heterogeneous panel data methods, pooled mean group (PMG), robust cross-sectional augmented autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL), and pairwise panel causality test. The results of PMG and CS-ARDL show the existence of causality between external debt and economic growth both in the short-run and long-run. The pairwise Granger causality test found the bidirectional causal relationship runs from total external debt, public external debt, and private external debt to economic growth and economic growth to external debt. The results showed first the existence of causality in the short-run and long-run between external debt and economic growth and the second, bi-directional causality that runs from external debt to economic growth and economic growth to external debt. Both the dynamic models and robust estimator found the same inferences about the impact of main variables on economic growth in Asian developing and transition economies. The findings of this study suggest to assure debt management, investment in productive sectors, increase domestic savings, decrease external dependency, and focus on international trade.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.725-735
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• 2021

This study investigates whether the Islamic Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) provide significant benefit to investors relative to conventional ETFs. Six pairs of Islamic and conventional ETFs with 10-year daily price data from 2010 to 2019 have been selected from major market indices like MSCI World Index, MSCI Emerging Markets, MyETF Dow Jones Islamic Market Malaysia, MSCI South East Asia and Wahed FTSE Shariah USA Index for this study. For ETFs that are launched after 2010, the price data from launch date to 2019 are used. Our results show: First, Islamic ETFs are more likely to trade at a premium rather than at a discount, implying the investors are willing to pay a premium. Second, it is also found that Islamic ETFs have a relatively shorter period of price deviation from the benchmark, implying more price stability. Third, conventional ETFs have higher return and lower tracking errors relative to Islamic ETFs. These new findings add to the stylized facts of Islamic ETFs in the extant literature for investors, plan sponsors and regulators as to the differences between the ETFs. As policy suggestion, asset management companies can design new investment products to bridge the gap between conventional and Islamic finance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.591-599
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• 2021

The increased risk in financial firms, due to Global Financial Crises and high international trade activities, has encouraged banks to use derivatives for both managing their financial risk and earning non-operating income simultaneously. The present study brings new evidence in the existing literature by determining the drivers behind financial derivative usage in Pakistani banks for 2011 till 2016. Moreover, the paper examines how risk plays a moderating role in determining the relationship between derivative usage and bank value. While assessing the determinants, a two-stage test has conducted, first, the logit regression was used to test the drivers behind the derivative usage in banks. Second, Tobit regression was run to analyze the factors leading to determine the extent of derivative usage. The findings demonstrate that Pakistani banks are using derivatives for both risk management and speculative motive as they are customers and users of derivatives at the same time. Empirical results, regarding moderating role of risk on the value implications of derivative usage, provide mixed findings as derivative usage gives value premium in case of non-systematic risk and foreign exchange risk. Whereas value discounts have been observed for cases where systematic risk is high and managers try to earn non-operating income from speculative activities.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.49-59
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• 2022

The relationship between income inequality and capital account openness is empirically investigated in this study, where macroeconomic variables have opposing effects. Panel data used in the study from the KAOPEN Index and World Bank consists of 28 Asian countries and has been examined; it contains annual observations from 1970 to 2018. The data is examined using a random-effect model based on GMM estimates. Income inequality and capital account openness are positively and significantly related, according to our findings. Overall, the findings imply that increasing income gaps reduced capital investment in nations with large discrepancies. The growing economic discrepancy is being caused by the rich's increasing income share at the expense of the poor. In Asia, inward capital account openness exacerbates income inequality, while outward capital account openness exacerbates it. As a result, income inequality slows economic growth, leading to inflation, unemployment, and increased government spending in several Asian countries. Our control factors, GDP, and other secondary school enrolments, all had a statistically significant negative relationship with income inequality. Income disparity has a positive and statistically significant association with government spending, inflation, population, trade openness, and unemployment. Income disparity has a negative association with capital account openness, gross domestic product, and secondary school enrollment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.555-563
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• 2020

The study seeks to investigate the relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation in garment and textile enterprises. While previous research has found many factors influencing knowledge sharing, little research has been done about the influence of knowledge sharing on innovation in enterprises in developing countries like Vietnam. In particular, the textile industry plays an important role in export, but outsourcing is accounting for a high proportion of trade; it is necessary to increase innovation in order to increase the competitive advantage by internal capacity. The data is collected from a survey of 245 employees at 20 textile and garment enterprises in Vietnam to study the knowledge sharing influence on innovation. The methodology includes pilot study and quantitative method. The pilot study tests the questionnaire on the respondents. The quantitative method applies SEM analysis to measure the knowledge sharing influence on innovation. The results identify eight factors that positively impact knowledge sharing: rewarding, teamwork, management support, joy of knowledge sharing, communication, trust, commitment, and information technology. This study also shows that knowledge sharing affects innovation. The main findings are discussed for textile and garment enterprises to apply innovative capacity in the context of increasing global integration.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.107-120
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• 2021

The development of the ethnic minorities and mountainous areas (EMMA) is currently receiving the attention of countries around the world. This is demonstrated through a large number of studies, in many respects, in many different countries. The objective of the study is to find out the current situation of the commodity market in the ethnic minorities and mountainous areas (EMMA) of Vietnam. In particular, the authors will study whether there is a link between the ability to access governmental policies and the characteristics of this commodity market. To achieve the goal, the authors employed the secondary data collection method to gather the relevant information on government policies for EMMA and conducted an interview of seventy (70) enterprises in the Northern midlands and mountainous regions and the Central Coast to clarify the characteristics of commodity market. By Levene's test, the results showed that the accessibility to governmental policies has a certain influence on the development of the commodity market patterns in the EMMA in terms of diversification of distribution forms and sales method of the business. These findings brought some basic solutions to further enhance the role of the government in developing commodity markets in the EMMA of Vietnam.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.345-354
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• 2021

With the evolution of containerization and globalization of supply chains, aspects of port functions have made the transition from the sea to the inland region that forms the dry port. To explore the relationship between dry ports and regional economic development, this study uses a gravity model and forecast model to analyze 1,040 observations in 104 cities (22 dry port cities) along the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2008 to 2017. The model includes economic variables, logistics variables, foreign relations variables, and human capital variables. It was found that the dry port is positively correlated with trade volume. Compared with a city without a dry port, the trade volume of a city with a dry port will increase 0.099 times. It can be concluded that a dry port is crucial for the economic development of the YREB. It was also found that per capita GDP as an economic variable, road area and rail number as logistics variables, and foreign relation variables are positively correlated with trade volume, while the human capital variable has no significant effect on trade volume. In addition, governmental policy implications are addressed from the aspects of dry port and industry cluster caused by foreign investment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.607-616
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• 2021

The European Union Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took effect on August 1 paving the way for increased trade between the EU and Vietnam; this marked a huge turning point for the Vietnamese economy. Agriculture products, especially fruits, must be listed when it comes to Vietnam export industries that profit the most from EVFTA. After a period of study, with the desire to contribute to the improvement in the efficiency of Vietnam's agricultural products to the EU, the researchers want to assess the impact of the EVFTA on the flows of Vietnamese fruits to the EU market. The study uses a quantitative analysis method via the WITS-SMART model with data on export turnover and tariff reductions in parallel with the analysis of changes in factors affecting the trade flows of fruits between the two markets when the EVFTA takes effect. As a result, Vietnam's fruit importing from the EU is expected to escalate by 29.18% in 2021, while the flow of export will only inch up by 0.955%, which is rather low compare to the increase in import value. Hence, effective policies must be introduced in Vietnam to innovate production methods and increase product quality, so that the EVFTA can be used to boost Vietnam's fruit exports to the EU.