환율변동이 고용에 미치는 효과분석

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Korea adopted a floating exchange rate regime after the 1997 currency crisis. As a result, effects of exchange rate fluctuation on aggregate demand as well as employment significantly increased. This paper aims to analyze how exchange rate fluctuation affects employment in Korea’s manufacturing industry. Previous studies generally assume that exchange rate affects employment through output change. It is true that manufacturing production is sensitive to exchange rate fluctuation. However, exchange rate and employment may have been decoupled, taking into account the recent downward trend of employment in manufacturing industry.
Using data covering 22 individual manufacturing industries, this paper tries to clarify the direct relationship between exchange rate and employment before and after the currency crisis (1993-2007). Moreover, it examines how such a relationship varies in domestic and exporting industries, or light and heavy industries. Our empirical analysis shows that higher exchange rate (depreciation of the domestic currency) has a positive effect on employment by increasing price competitiveness of export goods. Meanwhile, effects of import price index or industrial production index on employment appear to be quite different depending on characteristics of industries. Interestingly, employment in export industries becomes insensitive to global business cycle after the currency crisis. This finding may reflect the fact that an increase in exports does not necessarily lead to an increase in employment.