Learning-to-export Effect as a Response to Export Opportunities: Micro-evidence from Korean Manufacturing / CHIN HEE HAHN AND YONG-SEOK CHOI

This paper aims to investigate whether there is empirical evidence supporting the learning-to-export hypothesis, which has received little attention in the literature. By taking full advantage of plant-product level data from Korea during 1990-1998, we find some evidence for the learning-to-export effect, especially for the innovated product varieties with delayed exporters: their productivity, together with research and development and investment activity, was superior to their matched sample. On the other hand, this learning-to-export effect was not significantly pronounced for industries protected by import tariffs. Thus, our empirical findings suggest that it would be desirable to implement certain policy tools to promote the learning-to-export effect, whereas tariff protection is not justifiable for that purpose.

Public Opinions on Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation: A Survey Analysis / SEUNG-HO JUNG AND YONG-SHIN CHO

This research attempts to provide an in-depth analysis of the public perceptions of inter-Korean economic cooperation. KDI survey data with a sample size of 1,000 were subjected to empirical analyses. By means of ordered logit estimations, we derive the following results. First, there is a significant effect of age on economic cooperation perceptions, where younger generations tend to be more negative. Second, the group who has positive view on the economic cooperation tends to prefer large-scale, domestic-entity-funded cooperation projects, whereas the group who has negative view tends to prefer small-scale projects and projects funded by international organizations. According to these results, prioritizing trade with the involvement of international organizations is likely to be an effective measure to alleviate potential political constraints and to achieve sustainable long-run economic cooperation systems when pursuing the economic cooperation.

Social Welfare Analysis of Policy-based Finance with Support for Corporate Loan Interest / CHANGWOO NAM

We analyze the social welfare effect when a policy-based financial system (PFS) enters a decentralized financial market. Particularly, the PFS in this case supports the interest spread for corporate loans held by firms with heterogeneous bankruptcy decisions under an imperfect information structure. Although support for capital costs through the PFS expands the economy consistently, the optimal level of PFS out of the corporate loan market is estimated to be 8.6% by a simulation model considering social welfare adjusted by the disutility of labor. This result is much lower than the recent level of PFS in the Korean financial sector.