• Economic Analysis
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.132-176
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• 2019

We use a time-varying parameter vector auto regression (TVP-VAR) model to understand the impact of U.S. monetary policy normalization on Korean financial markets and capital accounts. The U.S. monetary policy is represented by the federal funds rate, term premium and credit spread. During the U.S. monetary contraction period of 2004 to 2006, changes in the federal funds rate presented negative pressure on Korean financial markets. The changes in federal funds rate also led to a simultaneous contraction in inward and outward capital flows. However, the effects of a federal funds rate shock has been reduced since 2015. On the other hand, the effects of U.S. term premiums is getting stronger after the period of quantitative easing (QE). The influence of the U.S. credit spread also significantly increased after the global financial crisis. Simulation results show that a rise in the U.S. credit spread, which can be triggered by a contractionary monetary policy, can pose a larger adverse impact on the Korean economy than a rise in the federal funds rate itself. As for capital flows, a U.S. monetary policy contraction causes an outflow of foreign investment, but the repatriation of overseas investment by Korean residents can offset this outflow.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.1-26
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• 2010

This paper empirically examines whether Korean monetary policy is independent of U.S. monetary policy during the post-crisis period in which capital account is liberalized and floating exchange rate regime is adopted and during the pre-crisis period in which capital mobility is restricted and tightly managed exchange rate regime is adopted. Before capital account liberalization, monetary autonomy can be achieved in view of the trillema, even under tightly managed exchange rate regime, as capital mobility is restricted. On the other hand, for the period after capital account liberalization, monetary autonomy can be also achieved in view of the trillema, as exchange rate stability is given up. Securing monetary autonomy, however, may not be easy under liberalized capital account for a small open economy like Korea. Huge capital movements can generate excessive instability in foreign exchange and asset markets. Strengthened international economic linkages may also be another factor to prevent monetary policy from being independent. Using block-exogenous structural VAR model, the effects of U.S. monetary policy shocks on Korean economy are examined. Empirical results show that Korean monetary policy is not independent of U.S. monetary policy for both periods before and after capital account liberalization. For the period after capital account liberalization, Korea does not seem to have implemented floating exchange rate policy in practice, which may lead Korean monetary policy to be dependent on U.S. monetary policy. For the period after capital account liberalization, portfolio flows respond dramatically to the U.S. monetary policy, which may also keep Korean monetary policy from being independent.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.147-155
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• 2019

Purpose - As the U.S.-China trade war has become considerably worse, the Chinese government is considering applying non-tariff barriers to trade, especially local contents rule. The main purpose of this research is to check whether it is suitable for Korean investors to invest in the current Chinese capital market. Design/methodology - In order to check the stability of the recent Chinese capital market, we investigated the behavior of foreign equity investment (including Korean equity investment) in the Chinese capital market after China announced the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SH-HK Connect). In this paper, we researched whether international portfolio investment would or would not contribute to an increase the volatility of an emerging market's stock market (Chinese capital market) when foreign investors make investment decisions based on the objective of short-term gains by rushing into countries whose markets are booming and fleeing from countries whose markets are falling. Findings - The empirical results indicate that foreign investors show strong, negative feedback trading behavior with regard to the stock index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), and when the performance of foreign investors in the Chinese stock market was fairly good. Also, we found evidence that the behavior of foreign investors significantly decreased volatility in SSE stock returns. Consequently, the SH-HK Connect brought on a win-win effect for both the Chinese capital market and foreign investors. Originality/value - It appeared that the Chinese capital market was very suitable for Korean investors after the China's declaration of the SH-HK Connect. However, the win-win effect was brought on by the Chinese government's aggressive capital control but the capital controls could possibly cause financial turmoil in the Chinese capital market. Therefore, Chinese reform in industrial structure and the financial sector should keep pace with suitable capital control policies.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.504-513
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• 2017

This study investigated one of the controversial issues on debate or even controversial between policy makers at the government and corporate levels: To examine any financial determinants on the cash holdings of the firms in the advanced and emerging capital markets. Futhermore, it focused on the large representative firms headquartered in the U.S. and the Republic of Korea, taking into account scarcity of the previous literature concentrated on the comparative studies on this particular subject. Several legitimate, but robust econometric estimations such as static and dynamic panel data models and Tobit regression, were applied to investigate possible financial factors ono the cash liquidity. Given the continued debates or arguments on the excess cash reserves between interest partied at the government and corporate levels in the advanced and/or emerging capital markets, and more accelerated capital transfers among associated nations by engaging in the arrangements of the FTAs, the results of the study may provide a vision to search for the optimal level of corporate cash holdings for firms in the two nations.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.127-150
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• 2003

This study analyzes how capital market comovement can affect investors' decision making. We first analyze time-varying correlation coefficient between stock indices of U.S.A. and Korea. and then, using our empirical results, attempt to draw implications on investors' behavior. We find that the tendency of comovement between Korea and U.S.A. equity returns has considerably increased after the financial crisis of late 1997. Through the analysis of investors' behavior, we find that foreign investors, contrary to ITC's (Investment Trust Company) and individual investors, buy more shares in Korean markets as American stock prices go up. Foreign investors employ dynamic hedging strategy and give more weight on global economic factors than domestic ones. Our empirical results as a whole imply that investment behavior of foreign investors is most closely related to comovement of U.S.A. and Korea capital markets.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2022

Our study adds to the body of knowledge about the relationship between credit ratings and the capital structure of bond issuers. Using Bloomberg and Datastream databases and employing panel regression models, we study the capital structure changes of Japanese enterprises after credit rating changes by global rating agencies (S&P and Moody's) as well as their local counterparts (R&I and JCR) from 1998 to 2016. We find that after rating downgrades, Japanese enterprises considerably reduce net debt or net debt relative to net equity, similar to the findings of Kisgen (2009), who focused on U.S. industrial firms. They do not, however, make adjustments to their financial structure as a result of rating improvements. In comparison to downgrades by S&P and Moody's, Japanese corporations issue 1.89 percent less net debt and 1.50 percent less net debt relative to net equity after R&I and JCR rating downgrades. To put it another way, Japanese companies consider rating adjustments made by local agencies to be more significant than those made by global rating organizations. Our findings contradict earlier research that suggests S&P and Moody's are more prominent in the investment community than R&I and JCR in Japan.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

This study examines the effect of managerial ownership on firm value in capital markets where outside governance mechanisms to discipline managers are weak or non-existent. We hypothesize that strong market forces in the U.S. confound the effect of managerial ownership on firm value, i.e., the convergence of interest argument. We test the hypothesis using data from 112 firms from Singapore Stock Exchange and 205 firms from the Stock Exchange of Thailand prior to the Asian financial crisis in 1997 when the market forces were weak, yet the investor protection was sufficient to prevent outright appropriation from management. For ease of comparison, we use methodologies from studies done on the U.S. sample firms during the same study period as ours. We find that, both in Singapore and Thailand, firm value is a function of managerial ownership, and the relation is of the famous inverted U-shaped. Moreover, the relation is robust under different model specifications. The results from Thai sample, with weaker market forces than in Singapore, lend support to many agency cost hypotheses advanced in the U.S. Our results provide useful implication for investors in emerging and frontier markets where outside governance mechanisms are yet to be fully developed.

• Journal of Legislation Research
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• no.41
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• pp.367-399
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• 2011

This Article examines the regulation of outsider trading under the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act (the "Capital Markets Act"). Outsider trading occurs when a market participant who is not a traditional corporate insider trades securities based on either "inside" or "outside" nonpublic information. Unlike "inside" information, "outside" information is referred to as information not derived directly or indirectly from the issuer. "Outside" information includes both "corporate" and "market" information. "Corporate information" is information about events or circumstances which affect the company's assets or earning power. "Outside corporate information" is information about the company's assets or earning power not derived directly or indirectly from the issuer. "Market information" is information about events or circumstances which affect the market for a company's securities but which do not affect the company's assets or earning power. The Capital Markets Act prohibits both "temporary insiders" from using "corporate" information in trading securities and "outsiders" from using "market" information, such as (i) information regarding the initiation or discontinuance of a tender offer; or (ii) information regarding acquisition or disposition of stocks in bulk. However, the Act does not encompass circumstances (i) where an outsider trades securities based on confidential corporate information obtained through certain types of wrongful conduct; (ii) where an outsider trades securities based on corporate information obtained through eavesdropping; and (iii) where an outsider trades securities based on either outside corporate information or market information created by the outsider himself. In order to plug a few of the gaps left open in the law of outsider trading under the Capital Markets Act, this Article suggests that regulators adopt a relatively broad reading of the scope of ${\S}$ 178(1) of the Act, which is similar to SEC Rule 10b-5, to include outsiders with no relationship to the corporation that had issued the securities. Since ${\S}$ 178(1) of the Act does not require "deception" for liability, it would seem to evade the limitations imposed by the U.S. misappropriation theory. Key Words : Outsider Trading, Insider Trading, Material Nonpublic Information, the Capital Markets Act, Misappropriation Theory, Fiduciary Theory.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.27-37
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• 2013

From the perspective of the domestic capital markets, there have been few researches on the financial characteristics of the firms belonging to the KOSDAQ(Korea Securities Dealers Automated Quotation) market, in comparison with those of the firms in the KOSPI. This study has performed three hypothesis tests to obtain the following results: By employing the 'panel data' analysis, it was found that, for the book-value based leverage, all of the six proposed IDVs were statistically significant as the financial determinants of leverage, across the two proxies measuring profitability (i.e., PFT and ROE), while all of the IDVs except VOLATILITY, also seemed to be the attributes to explain the market based dependent variable in the model with the PFT. Moreover, there may be statistically significant (structural) changes (or quasi-experiment) ) between the pre- and post-U.S. financial crisis in the year of 2008, when measured the leverage with the market-value basis with utilizing the Chow F-test. Finally, based upon the logistic regression results, the probability for a firm to be classified into the Prime section in the KOSDAQ market, may be higher, as its profit margin and asset turnover increase.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.86-98
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• 2014

This study examined a long-standing issue with its perverse results in the Korean capital markets, such as any variant financial profiles over time, affecting capital structure for the firms belonging to the chaebols. It may be of interest to identify these components from the perspectives of international investors and domestic policy makers to implement their contingent strategies on the target leverage, since the U.S. financial turmoils in the late 2000s. Regarding the evidence from the three hypothesis tests on the firms in the chaebols, this research found that the control variabels measuring profitability, business risk, and non-debt tax shields, showed their statistically significant relationships with the different types of a debt ratio. While FCFF(free cash flow to the firm) showed its significant influence to discriminate between the firms in the chaebols and their counterparts, not belonging to the chaebols, BDRELY as the ratio of liabilities to total assets, comprising the enhanced 'Dupont' system, only showed its statistically significant effect on leverage in the context of the parametric and nonparametric tests. In line with the results obtained from the present research, one may expect that a firm in the Korean chaebol, may control or restructure its present level of capital structure to revert to its target optimal capital structure towards maximizing the shareholders' wealth.