서강대학교

목차

This study examines the impact of import price on employment and wages in the Korean manufacturing industries during the period, 1989-1996. The reaction of all manufacturing industries is estimated by Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) using estimates of the cross-section residual variance matrix, while the estimation of the specific-industry reaction is conducted by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS).
Import price is not significantly correlated with employment when employment is measured with the number of workers. It suggests that Korean manufacturing sector is rigid to some extent in displacing or employing labor with regard to the changes of import price. When measured with work-hours per person in a week, employment of production workers is negatively correlated with import price, while that of non-production workers is positively correlated with it. This implies that a fall in import price, or a rise in import competition, slightly increases the work hours per person for production workers but decreases the work hours for non-production workers.
When it comes to the wage equation, the coefficients of production and non-production wages are statistically insignificant. Therefore, a change in import price has negligible impact on wages regardless of workers’ category.
Still, according to the results of the specific-industry reaction, the sensitivity of industries varies across industries. There is a considerable variation in the magnitude of the import price influence on employment and wage of the Korean manufacturing sector. In addition, the relationship between import price and employment and/or wage becomes positive or negative depending on the industry characteristics.