Does Korea Restrict its Imports of the Primary Agricultural Products?

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the trade patterns of the Korean primary agricultural products to assess how much the Korean trade policy restricts the imports of this product category. We use yearly trade data from 1976 to 2016 to obtain the revealed symmetric comparative advantage and the trade balance. The difference between the two indicators can reveal the policy interference tendency. To our surprise, the results show that Korean policy contrarily facilitates the imports of primary agricultural products during the period. That may be an evidence of the adoption of virtual land strategy, which prompts Korea to import more agricultural products than the comparative advantage predicts.