• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.161-178
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• 2023

Purpose - purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the investment facilitation levels of 11 RCEP countries (excluding Myanmar, Brunei, and Laos due to lack of data) on China's outward foreign direct investments(OFDI) using balanced panel data from 2010 to 2019. Design/methodology - First, four investment facilitation measurement indicators (regulatory environment, infrastructure, financial market, ease of doing business) were selected,investment facilitation scores of the 11 countries were obtained using the principal component analysis, an investment gravity model was established with nine explanatory variables (investment facilitation level, market size, population, geographic distance, degree of opening, tax level, natural resources, whether the country is an APEC member or not, and whether a valid bilateral investment treaty with China has been concluded) were used to establish an investment gravity model, and regression analyses were conducted with OLS and system GMM. Findings - The results of the regression analyses showed that investment facilitation levels had the greatest effect on China's OFDI, all four first-level indicators had positive effects on China's OFDI, and among them, the institutional environment had the greatest effect. In addition, it was shown that explanatory variables such as market size, population, geographical distance, degree of openness, natural resources, and whether or not a valid bilateral investment treaty has been concluded would have positive effects on China's OFDI, while tax levels and APEC membership would impede China's OFDI to some extent. Originality/value - Since the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEPT) came into effect not long ago, there are not so many studies on the effects of investment facilitation levels of RCEP member states on China's OFDI, and the investment facilitation measurement index constructed in this paper is relatively systematic and scientific because it includes all the contents of investment facilitation related to the life cycle of company's foreign direct investments.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.117-144
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• 2009

This paper analyzes how Korea's trade intensity with major ASEAN countries changed from 2000 to 2005. For this purpose, we measured the trade intensity index, the trade complementarity index, and the special country bias index between Korea and ASEAN countries by the trade intensity index model developed by Yamazawa (1970). The OECD trade matrix was used as data. We found that Korea's trade intensity with Indonesia increased from 8.91 in 2000 to 10.88 in 2005 due to a considerable increase in Korea's special country bias with Indonesia from 9.58 in 2000 to 10.75 in 2005. Therefore Korea's special country bias with Indonesia should be enhanced further by increasing capital movements and reducing discriminatory tariffs and other import restrictions between Korea and Indonesia. It was also found that trade intensity between Korea and other ASEAN countries (i.e., Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) shows a similar pattern of the above trade intensity between Korea and Indonesia except the trade complementarity.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.146-163
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper examines China's impact on Korea's ICT exports considering the direct competition channel, the production shift channel, and the indirect demand channel at once. This paper also takes China's economic rebalancing into account and discusses whether it makes any differences in the effect of the three channels. Design/methodology - To quantify the effect of the three channels, I constructed a linear panel regression model and estimated it with various estimation methods including the system GMM. China's exports toward the same destination as Korea's exports, Korea's exports toward China, and the third countries' exports toward China respectively reflect the three channels. China's GVC indicators are included as well to evaluate the effect of further China's economic rebalancing. Since the present paper has a greater interest in the effect of China rather than the determinant of bilateral trade, a (fixed effect) panel model becomes more appropriate than the gravity model because timeinvariant variables in the gravity model, such as the distance and the language, are eliminated during the estimation process. Findings - The estimation results indicate that Chinese ICT exports are complementary to Korea's ICT exports in general. However, when markets are considered in subgroups, China's ICT exports could have a negative effect in the long run, especially for SITC75 and SITC76 markets, implying a possible competitive threat of China. The production shift effect turns significant during China's economic rebalancing in the markets for the advanced economies and the SITC76 product. China's indirect demand channel is also in effect significantly for the advanced economy and SITC75 commodities during China's economic rebalancing periods. In addition, this paper shows that China's transition toward upstream in the global value chain could have a positive impact on Korea's ICT exports, especially at the Asian market. Originality/value - The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it focuses on the ICT industry for which Korea increasingly depends on China and China becomes a global hub of the GVC. Second, this paper quantitatively studies three channels in a model in contrast to the literature which mostly examines those channels separately and pays less attention to the GVC aspect. Third, by utilizing relatively recent data from the period of 2001-2017, this paper discusses whether China's economic rebalancing affects the three channels.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.35-49
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• 2019

This study aims to determine whether the export volume of export country is affected by the strengthening of environmental management level of the importing country depending on the relative technology level of the importing country. To this end, a gravity model was established and the relative size of environmental management level was introduced, and how it affects the export was analyzed according to the difference of environmental management level between Korea and the importing country. The analysis of Korean industry by technology level (based on R&D investment) shows that countries with higher environmental management levels increase exports in both high and low technologies compared to Korea. On the other hand, exports of high-tech industries did not affect export growth in countries with lower environmental management than Korea.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.343-359
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• 2014

This study investigates how cultural differences between countries affect bilateral trade volumes, using Hofstede's cultural index that reflects nations' cultural characteristics. Empirical analyses of the impacts of Hofstede's five cultural characteristics on bilateral trade volumes are conducted either in each separate equation or simultaneously. Bilateral trade data of OECD countries plus China as of year 2010 is used for regression analysis on gravity model. Regression results from individual equation for each cultural index variable show tthe smaller the index gaps of power distances and uncertainty avoidance among countries, the larger bilateral trade volumes. On the contrary, the larger the index gaps of long-term orientation among countries, the larger bilateral trade volumes. If five Hofstede cultural indexes are regressed in a single equation, however, only variables of power distance and long-term orientation are significant. The analysis largely confirms that bilateral trade among countries with similar culture have much potrential to grow. It implies that policy actions for cultural proximity are very important for furthering bilateral trade.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.349-359
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• 2022

At present, with the diversified development of the global economy, the trade of cultural products has become an important factor affecting the competition of comprehensive strength among countries. As a neighboring country to China, South Korea has a similar cultural development environment to China. As an important pillar of South Korea's economy, cultural product trade, its development experience has reference significance for China. This paper adopts literature research method, comparative analysis method and empirical analysis method to conduct research. The article firstly analyzes the export level of China and South Korea from the scale of the import and export of cultural products, and finds the difference between the import and export of cultural products between the two countries. Then, it compares and analyzes the insufficiency of China's cultural product trade structure and the advantage of Korea's cultural product trade structure. Finally, this paper uses the stochastic frontier gravity model to conduct empirical analysis and draws relevant conclusions about the trade potential of cultural products between China and South Korea. The research results show that: (1) the international competitiveness of cultural products trade in China and South Korea is relatively high, but the competitiveness of China's cultural products has been improved slowly; (2) compared with South Korea, China's cultural product exports are affected by trade inefficiency factors larger. (3) The improvement of government efficiency has a great effect on reducing the inefficiency of trade in China.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.681-687
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• 2013

Free Trade Agreement(FTA) aims at abolishing tariffs on trade among nations or regions resulting in having a significant impact on maritime transportation and port. Korea made the first FTA with Chile in 2004 and the trade volume between two countries has seen significant increase. The literature on such impact, however, seems to be very limited. The main purpose of this study is, therefore, to analyze the impact of Korea-Chile Free Trade Agreement on the imported container throughput from Chile at the Busan Port. For this both cross-sectional and time series data are collected that comprise container throughput, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), import tariff, and maritime freight rate, from 2000 to 2011, and the gravity model is applied. The main result of the study shows that the dependent variables, GDP and import tariff are statistically significant, but the maritime freight rate is not consistent with regarding to statistical significance and parameter sign.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.87-108
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• 2018

This article explores the international trade flow of Bangladesh's ready-made garments (RMG). We first suggest the brief history and an international structure of trade among countries by using the trade volume. Then we implemented a gravity model regression with the sample of 38 major partner countries in order to investigate the potential export market for the RMG industry. The fixed effect and random effect model for the panel data during the period of 1990 to 2011 are estimated. Our result shows that Bangladesh's RMG exports are affected positively by the size of economy, inflation, exchange rate, foreign direct investment(FDI) and trade openness. On the other hand, the distance between trading partners are related negatively with the trade volume. We used the estimated coefficients from the panel regression in order to predict RMG export potential of Bangladesh. This might show which country is the promising export market for Bangladesh RMG industry. We found that Bangladesh has the highest potential of RMG export with Japan and USA, which seem to have considerable room for export growth if trade barriers and constraints are removed. We added some policy implications for encouraging the RMG export of Bangladesh by using the results from the analysis.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.187-201
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the current situation of Korean shipbuilding industry and the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) in this field. This paper uses empirical research models including a panel gravity model based on trade, gross domestic product, purchasing power parity, population, distance, and implementation of FTA. According to the results of the analysis, FTAs have a positive influence on the Korean shipbuilding industry. Therefore, the Korean government needs to work positively in order to sign FTAs and provide support for the industry and related businesses to grow.

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