Convergence or Divergence : Middle Income Trap of China

Haddou, Abdenour,Jang, Ji Young 부산대학교 중국연구소 2018 Journal of China Studies Vol.21 No.2

Middle Income Trap and the Export Sophistication: The Case of MENA Countries with Reference to Korea

Abdenour Haddou,Ji-Young Jang,Chang-Soo Kim 한국무역연구원 2017 무역연구 Vol.13 No.6

The globalization promotes specialization according to comparative advantage. The ability to shift nation’s comparative advantage in a globalized environment is an important key factor for middle income trapped countries. While the comparative advantage of resource-abundant countries such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia remains a given endowment factor, Korea managed to shift its comparative advantage from labor abundant to capital abundant. In order to understand the reasons of success and failure of economies, the competitiveness in international trade was examined. Historical changes in export structures using the Net Export Ratio were studied to determine whether countries’ industrial upgrading of exported goods follows a smooth transition. This study’s finding is that for trapped countries, the patterns of exporting mainly were concentrated at the primary goods and this narrow industrial base is thus a possible cause of the MIT. This trend has intensified during the period of 1995-2015 when free trade environment was dominant. As for Korea, the industrial upgrading process appears to be consistent with the “flying-geese model” indicating that the industrial upgrading process passed through the backward linkage from consumption goods to capital goods.

Comparative Intra-industry Trade Analysis on the Asymmetric Effects of the FTA: Korea and MENA Countries

Abdenour Haddou,Ji-Young Jang 한국무역연구원 2018 무역연구 Vol.14 No.4

Intra-industry-trade (IIT) demonstrates the degrees of integration of an economy with the world and the status of that economy within the global value chain. This paper compared the IIT data of Korea and selected MENA countries. The Grubel and Lloyd index was calculated using the COMTRADE data during the period of 1995-2015 to compare the dynamics of IIT flows under each free trade agreement (FTA) regime. IIT flows did not show much change in patterns in the case of Algeria and Saudi- Arabia. In particular, it was found that the FTA of Algeria with the EU did not affect the trade structure. The comparative advantage of Algeria and Saudi-Arabia remains in their primary commodities reflecting a narrow industrial base. But the IIT flows of Turkey exhibited that Turkey had been integrating into the global value chain system after its FTA with the EU. These results are in accordance with the findings of Bülhart(2008) indicating that the positive association between IIT and income is not universal. As for Korea, its IIT flows shows that the Korea economy has become deeply integrated with the EU and the USA following its FTA. Overall, the IIT flows have been advancing to a high level of trade structure.

Comparative Analysis on the Auto Parts Imports Intensity Index and Implications on Korean SMEs

Abdenour Haddou,Ji-Young Jang,Chang-Soo Kim 한국무역연구원 2019 무역연구 Vol.15 No.1

This paper examines the current status of the auto parts industry by creating the Auto Parts Imports Intensity Index. COMTRADE data from 2000 to 2017 was used for imports of automotive and auto parts to see how imports of finished car and auto parts have different interdependent relationships in specific countries. Two categories were selected for international comparison; the first category includes automotive manufacturing developing countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Russia. And the second category includes developing countries that just import cars, which are typically Middle East Countries. The results found that direct exports from Korea shows a weakening trend over-all. The decreasing sales growth of automobiles brings the high values of index specially in Chinese market. In contrast, the index value shows balanced pattern in most of countries for German cars. The different patterns between Korea and Germany can be partially explained by the excessive vertical industry structure of Korea and empowering SMEs of Germany. Implications are the following; first, the government should support SMEs to enhance their capabilities like German SMEs. Second, opportunities for auto parts industries are still strongly present. As developing countries in the first category increase their local production, the demand for reliable low-cost car parts has also increased. Therefore, Korean auto parts SMEs should explore these possibilities through the inclusion to global value chain. As for the second category, targeted efforts to diversify markets are required.

A Comparative Analysis on Effects of Fiscal and Monetary Policy Using Panel Structural VAR

Abdenour Haddou,장지영 한국무역연구원 2020 무역연구 Vol.16 No.5

Purpose The effects of monetary policy can be limited given the environment of zero rate to minimize the negative economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the importance of fiscal policy cannot be emphasized too much. Efficiency of fiscal policy is dependent upon the reactions of economic agents. This paper examines the asymmetric effects of macro economic policy and Ricardian Equivalence Proposition to find out whether reasonable economic agents react in a way of offsetting expansionary fiscal policy if the fiscal spending is funded by issuing the government debts. Design/Methodology/Approach Panel structural Vector Auto Regression (Panel VAR) model was used. The quarterly data from 5 OECD Countries - Canada, Japan, Spain, Sweden and Korea for the period of 1990 to 2018 were examined. The level of government debt and age dependency ratio were set as exogenous variables. Asymmetric effects of policy were identified by imposing contemporaneous restrictions. And the Recursive Cholesky Decomposition was conducted to compare the effects of monetary and fiscal policy to stimulate economy. Findings First, the level of government debt was not statistically significant. It indicates that empirical validation of the Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis was not supported with our data. Second, the effect of fiscal policy is stronger than the effect of monetary policy when the trend of aging population is considered. The one unit of increase in the shares of elderly population leads to lower short term rates. This suggests the demand for consumption and investments gets weakened by demographic shift to old age. Research Implications The reactions of heterogenous private agents are critical to enhance the efficiency of the macro policy. Therefore, social and economic structure to boost inclusive development is important in terms of tax systems.

A Study on the Introduction and Problems of Capstone Design Program in International Trade Department

장지영,정무섭,Abdenour Haddou 한국무역상무학회 2018 貿易商務硏究 Vol.80 No.-

A capstone design class can provide the valuable educational setting for students in terms of collaboration of industry-university, linking the theoretical methodology to the reality. This study examined 20 final reports by 97 students who took the capstone design program in Dong-A university. 70% of student were able to generate international trade sales within one semester proving young students have advantage in time and passion. Our analysis found that students limit their potential due to the lack of real industry exposure. Students chose only the light consumer items while most of SME export items are intermediate industry items and 88% of employment is held by SME. And with the advent of 4th industrial revolution, students shows great interests learning e-commerce related skills as online marketing is a key factor for success in their business model. Implication of our research is summarized into two; first, our finding is in accordance with Kim Hyun-jae and Choi Young-joon (2015) that skills and quality mismatch between the labor demand from industry and supply from university increases the idle labour amount. secondly, therefore, it is necessary to increase the quality of capstone design class to reduce the mismatch and improve the efficiency of labor market. Although Capstone design is a good program for students to experience the whole process of trading, it is not easy to find practical field problems at university. Therefore, further research on linking capstone design program with industry would be necessary.