• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
• /
• v.37 no.5
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2022

Digital trade rules are crucial in supporting the digital economy as the rules effectively reduce unnecessary trade barriers. This study introduces various approaches that major countries take regarding digital trade policies and rules. Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership has introduced comprehensive rules on e-commerce, including binding articles on the free flow of information, location of computing facilities, and source code. More recent e-commerce provisions or digital trade agreements cover wider range of issues, from cyber security, artificial intelligence, and data innovation to electronic invoicing and payments. Multilateral negotiations on digital trade rules, including the World Trade Organization E-commerce Joint Statement Initiatives and Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, are in progress. Thus, countries involved are expected to respond to new digital trade issues with long-term strategies considering domestic policy objectives.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.45 no.5
• /
• pp.239-260
• /
• 2020

This research was conducted on 176 GVCs-related research papers listed in the Index of Korean Academic Writers. The analysis methodology used the keyword network analysis methodology of big data analysis. For the comprehensive analysis of research trends, the research trends through word frequency (TF), important topic (TF-IDF), and topical modeling were analyzed in 176 papers. In addition, the research period of GVCs was divided into the early stages of the first study (2003-2014), the second phase of the study (2015-2017), and the third phase of the study (2018-2020). According to the comprehensive analysis, the GVCs research was conducted with the keyword 'value added' as the center, focusing on the keywords of export (trade), Korea, business, influence, and production. Major research topics were 'supporting corporate cooperation and capacity building' and 'comparative advantage with added value of overseas direct investment'. According to the analysis of major period-specific research trends, GVCs were studied in the early stages of the first phase of the study with global value chain trends and corporate production strategies. In the second research propulsion period, research was done in terms of trade value added. In the recent third phase of the study, small and medium-sized enterprises actively participated in the global value chain and actively researched ways to support the government. Through this study, the importance of the global value chain has been confirmed quantitatively and qualitatively, and it is recognized as an important factor to be considered in the strategy of enhancing industrial competitiveness and entering overseas markets. In particular, small and medium-sized companies' participation in the global value chain and support measures are being presented as important research topics in the future.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2023

Trade rules in service and digital sectors mainly focus on reducing regulatory uncertainties by improving transparency and minimizing unnecessary requirements. Recognizing the importance of digital trade rules and trade in information and communication technology (ICT) sectors, governments worldwide have rapidly adopted and expanded rules on free flow of data, personal data protection, electronic authentication, and cybersecurity. On the other hand, advances in technology have led governments to face multiple threats related to cybersecurity, intellectual property (including that related to source code and algorithms), and unauthorized access to proprietary information of their suppliers. This study presents digital trade rules related to digital security emphasizing cybersecurity, source code, and ICT products that use cryptography in different trade agreements. Additionally, it introduces various approaches that major countries are taking to both address digital security issues and seek balance between security enhancement and trade liberalization.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.45 no.3
• /
• pp.55-69
• /
• 2020

This study examines the research trends and knowledge structure of international trade studies using topic modeling method, which is one of the main methodologies of text mining. We collected and analyzed English abstracts of 1,868 papers of three Korean major journals in the area of international trade from 2003 to 2019. We used the Latent Dirichlet Allocation(LDA), an unsupervised machine learning algorithm to extract the latent topics from the large quantity of research abstracts. 20 topics are identified without any prior human judgement. The topics reveal topographical maps of research in international trade and are representative and meaningful in the sense that most of them correspond to previously established sub-topics in trade studies. Then we conducted a regression analysis on the document-topic distributions generated by LDA to identify hot and cold topics. We discovered 2 hot topics(internationalization capacity and performance of export companies, economic effect of trade) and 2 cold topics(exchange rate and current account, trade finance). Trade studies are characterized as a interdisciplinary study of three agendas(i.e. international economy, International Business, trade practice), and 20 topics identified can be grouped into these 3 agendas. From the estimated results of the study, we find that the Korean government's active pursuit of FTA and consequent necessity of capacity building in Korean export firms lie behind the popularity of topic selection by the Korean researchers in the area of int'l trade.

• Journal of Korea Trade
• /
• v.23 no.8
• /
• pp.1-26
• /
• 2019

Purpose - This paper investigates the recent trade collapse, recovery, and prolonged slowdown to shed light on the discussions about whether the current slowdown is structural or cyclical. I examine structural, cyclical, and heterogeneous aspects of the recent trade trends using detailed statistics of a small open economy, South Korea, whose economic success and growth have been heavily dependent on exports. Design/methodology - I use both aggregated and disaggregated trade statistics of South Korea. I apply the following methodologies: 1) I decompose the trade growth into the extensive and the intensive margin and observe the effect of prices over time. 2) I estimate the trade-income elasticities focusing on the world's import demand, separately for goods from the world and from Korea. 3) I compare the drop in goods exports in slowdown and trade collapse, which are the two unusual periods in the recent history when world trade has substantially dropped altogether. Findings - I show that while the last drop of trade after 2015 has cyclical aspects, there is evidence that the continued slowdown from 2012 is structural: 1) the so-called 'China factor' is found in the analysis of trade-income elasticity of the world and China for imports from Korea. 2) The bilateral trade barriers between Korea and its principal trading partners are universally tightening. 3) Firm sizes, destination countries, and the mode of transactions affect disaggregated trade flows during the slowdown periods. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the debate regarding whether the current trade slowdown is structural or cyclical. I provide two concrete evidence that the export drop in 2015 stems from low oil prices: one is the divergence of Korean export value index from its export quantity index, which started in late 2014 when oil prices plunged. I also contribute to the literature by providing evidence that Korea's trade barriers with important trading partners are steadily increasing since 2012 as the protectionist measures toward Korea's export products are steeply increasing after the global financial crisis.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.45 no.6
• /
• pp.181-205
• /
• 2020

International trade theory is largely divided into the pure theory of international trade and the theory of trade policy. The pure theory of international trade is an academic field that conducts research related to the trade flow of goods and services between countries and the movement of production factors across borders. Meanwhile, the theory of trade policy studies the positive and normative aspects of trade policy which a government adopts to achieve its policy goals. In this study, about 230 papers in the field of international trade theory published in the Korea Trade Review over the past 45 years (1975~2019) are examined in meta analysis by period and subject. First, this study provides the main research subjects of international trade theory, and historically reviews the overall development of trade theory by paying attention to the core and pioneering papers, domestic and foreign. Second, the publications in the field of trade theory are classified by subject, and the domestic and foreign research trends are also examined for each subject with the analysis of major publication of this Journal.

• International Commerce and Information Review
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.167-195
• /
• 2010

The global financial crisis, the instability of the global economy since the beginning of the growing economic interests of the countries to adjust to establish a new economic system was set up on occasion. Meanwhile, standing in the international trade environment, multilateral system of international trade for the country as the cumulative fatigue of open markets and trade liberalization as an alternative to lead the free trade agreements between countries. Currently in Korea and China, in addition to the geographical proximity in all areas, including economic exchanges and mutually dependent relationship that is deepening the world's No. 1 exporter in China and overseas investors have become partners. FTA with China by promoting the growth of emerging economies in the Chinese market by securing a stable economic growth of China as a driver of economic growth in the country to utilize the plan is being promoted from. This study is currently being promoted, in a discussion of the FTA's agricultural trade measures to address the challenges and poems. Agricultural trade with other goods to be different from the specificity of the discussion of market opening and liberalization of trade has been recognized in the main essentially nothing. We promote an FTA, according to one review and discuss the background and trends of the agricultural trade in a market, through the analysis of the status and trends and present problems for future bilateral trade negotiations with Korea for agricultural markets and propose countermeasures for. Agricultural trade, during a discussion of the FTA is essentially nothing in the review is expected to expand the bilateral trade in agricultural products, while protecting its agricultural markets to be trying to policy implications.

• Safety and Health at Work
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.151-155
• /
• 2015

The study was designed to identify any trends of injury type as it relates to the age and trade of construction workers. The participants for this study included any individual who, while working on a heavy and highway construction project in the Midwestern United States, sustained an injury during the specified time frame of when the data were collected. During this period, 143 injury reports were collected. The four trade/occupation groups with the highest injury rates were laborers, carpenters, iron workers, and operators. Data pertaining to injuries sustained by body part in each age group showed that younger workers generally suffered from finger/hand/wrist injuries due to cuts/lacerations and contusion, whereas older workers had increased sprains/strains injuries to the ankle/foot/toes, knees/lower legs, and multiple body parts caused by falls from a higher level or overexertion. Understanding these trade-related tasks can help present a more accurate depiction of the incident and identify trends and intervention methods to meet the needs of the aging workforce in the industry.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.21 no.11
• /
• pp.465-476
• /
• 2020

This study used social network analysis to analyze trends and the knowledge structure of research in international trade. To this end, 4,840 keywords were extracted and analyzed from 1,797 papers contained in the Journal of Int'l Trade and Industry Studies, the Korea Trade Review, and the Journal of Korea Trade from 2003 to 2019. The results reveal that the distribution of keywords in the trade studies, as with other intellectual networks, followed a power-law distribution. Some differences were observed in the top 20 keywords across journals, with total factor productivity, economic growth, and Korea-US FTA ranking high only in the Journal of Int'l Trade and Industry Studies. Global value chain and trust emerged as a topic that attracted new researchers' attention in the 2011-2019 period. Interest in E-Trade, WTO, and internationalization has declined in recent years. The conventional international trade research trend analyses have predominantly featured qualitative analysis by descriptive method in general, but this study is meaningful in that it employs quantitative analysis using social network analysis techniques.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.43-72
• /
• 2019

This study examines the trends, current situation and implications of non-tariff measures (NTM) and specific trade concerns (STC) on the protection trade measures of ASEAN. ASEAN's non-tariff measures and the share of specific trade concerns are very significant as they are the second and third largest, respectively, of the major countries. This means that protection measures using non-tariff measures are a strong feature of ASEAN's trade policy. Also, in the future, ASEAN should try to prevent unnecessary disputes caused by exporting countries' specific trade concerns in the implementation of non-tariff measures. Activating trade policy cooperation is likely to reduce conflicts and costs caused by these trade disputes.