Aie-Rie Lee

Cointegration, error-correction, and the relationship between GDP and energy:: The case of South Korea and Singapore

This paper examines the causality issue between energy consumption and GDP for South Korea and Singapore, with the aid of cointegration and error-correction modeling. Results of the cointegration and error-correction models indicate bidirectional causality between GDP and energy consumption for both South Korea and Singapore. However, results of the standard Granger causality tests show no causal relationship between GDP and energy consumption for South Korea and unidirectional causal relationship from energy consumption to GDP for Singapore.

Relationship between U.S. energy consumption and employment : further evidence

Abstract Trivariate vector error-correction models (VECMs), in conjunction with cointegrated systems, are used to examine the causality issues between U.S. employment and energy consumption. Results of the VECMs indicate a bidirectional causality between nonfarm employment and energy consumption and between total employment and energy consumption. Furthermore, the replication of prior studies, after log-transforming, adjusting for seasonality and correcting for unit roots, also produced a unidirectional causal relationship from total employment to energy consumption and a bidirectional causal relationship between nonfarm employment and energy consumption for the 1973·1−1984·6 sample period in the bivariate models. Extending the sample period further, however, completely eliminated the unidirectional causal relationship from total employment to energy consumption in the bivariate system.

The impact of oil prices on income and energy

The major determinant of real income growth in Korea is real oil prices, followed by money supply, exchange rates, energy consumption, and government spending. Over the longer horizon, the effects of exchange rates, oil prices, government spending, and money supply become more pronounced. For energy consumption, the most important factor is oil prices, followed by exchange rates, government spending, money supply, and income. For the association between energy consumption and real income, energy consumption influences real income growth only through energy consumption, while real income affects energy consumption only through the error correction term. The findings of the study thus suggest that the level of economic activity and energy consumption mutually influence each other.

The export-led growth hypothesis: The role of the exchange rate, money, and government expenditure from Korea

This article examines the export-led growth hypothesis for Korea in five-variable vector autoregressive and vector error correction models from 1973:1 to 1994:4. Results of the vector autoregressive models indicate economic growth Granger-causing export growth, regardless of the sample period. However, results of the vector error correction models show bidirectional causality between export growth and economic growth when the multivariate generalization of the Granger causality tests are used. In the variance decompositions, the real exchange rate contains most information regarding future fluctuations in economic growth and export growth followed by money supply and government expenditure in the subsample and the full sample, with economic growth as a dependent variable. However, when the dependent variable is export growth, then the order of the magnitude in the full sample becomes the exchange rate, followed by economic growth, government spending, and money supply. The findings in this paper suggest that the omitted variables have masked or overstated the effect of exports on income or income on exports in prior studies.

Social Capital and Political Participation in South Korea

This article, using the second and third waves of the World Values Surveys study, investigates the development of social capital as understood in terms of civic engagement in Korea. The causal antecedents of social capital and its consequences on mass political attitudes and behaviors are also examined. For the purpose of the empirical studies in this article, however, we evaluate the influence of associational life on a single aspect of political participation, namely political protest. The findings indicate that there is a sharp rise in the percentage of civic engagement over a six-year period between 1990 and 1996 (roughly between the democratic transition and the period of consolidation) and that there is a consistent association between only one form of civil society participation, namely, membership in trade unions and elite-challenging action (protest potential). Consequently, contrary to the findings in prior studies, social capital plays a minor role in political participation in Korea.

Economic Voting in South Korea: Pocketbook or Sociotropic?

Using 2003 Asian Barometer Survey study data, this paper examines the economic voting model in the 2002 presidential election in South Korea. The core emphasis of the paper is on an investigation of the relative effects of different dimensions/scopes of economic evaluations on voting behavior, namely whether one form of assessment (e.g., pocketbook vs. sociotropic) can have similar consequences for electoral participation as others. The findings indicate that the overall economy is salient for Koreans to shape their political choices. In other words, voting behavior in Korea depends on how she or he thinks the national economy has been for the past five years. Also found is that voters’ perceptions of their own personal financial situations did not matter much as a predictor of voter choice.

Social Network Model of Political Participation in Japan

The objective of the study is to re-examine the Verba, Nie, and Kim (VNK)s path-breaking analysis of political participation and political equality, under the inclusion of a social network model in Japan. In particular, the present research investigates how and why we find the extremely low correlations between ones socio-economic resource level (SERL) and political participation in Japan, the evidence unsatisfactorily explained by the VNK analysis. Building on the social network model and employing the first wave of the Asian Barometer survey conducted in 2003, this research presents a more comprehensive model of political participation. The study finds three major kinds of causes for the weak associations between SERL–participation levels in Japan: exogenous factors (i.e., sex, urbanization, and age); equalizing impact of social networks; and weak SERL–psychological involvement linkage. From the viewpoint of the social network model, it is clear that the weak SERL–participation linkage is derived from the equalizing impact of group-based processes, yet uniquely Japanese style of network involvement.

The U.S.-Korea conflict over rice liberalization: A Korean perspective

This article argues that Korea should not completely liberalize its rice market. The argument begins from the issue of food-security policy to the contradiction between self-sufficiency and the comparative advantage of the importance of agricultural protection, in light of advanced industrialized nations’ heavy subsidies of their agricultural commodities, including rice, and implicit and explicit trade barriers on Korean exports. The argument emphasizes the importance of self-sufficiency policy for rice in Korea, thus recommending not complete but partial liberalization of the agricultural market, as a condition for Korea’s own self-interest. The argument also emphasizes the importance of a diversified foreign and economic policy for Korea, and thus of forming future security relations with other nations besides the United States.