Does the Solow Residual for Korea Reflect Pure Technology Shocks?

This study investigates the relationship between the measured Solow residual and demand side variables for the Korean economy. The measured Solow residuals are shown to be Granger-caused by some demand side variables such as exports, M1, and government expenditure. A vector error correction model is constructed to investigate dynamic relation between these demand side variables and the Solow residual. Impulse response functions shows that the measured Solow residual moves pro-cyclically with the demand shocks, and that the forecast error variance of the measured Solow residual is mostly explained by past innovations of these demand side variablesSolow residual, Productivity shock, Vector error correction model

Could Imports be Beneficial for Economic Growth? Some Evidence from Republic of Korea

The Republic of Korea is widely seen as a classical example of East Asia's export-driven economic growth. The focus in the literature on exports in the economy's growth has led to an almost complete neglect of the role of imports. This study investigates the relationship between exports, imports, and economic growth using quarterly data from 1980 to 2003. Results indicate that imports have a significant positive effect on productivity growth but exports do not. Furthermore, the evidence reveals that the productivity-enhancing impact of imports is due to competitive pressures arising from consumer good imports and technological transfers embodied in capital good imports from developed countries. Most of the study's results still hold using gross domestic product growth rather than productivity growth as the measure of economic growth. The evidence implies that under certain circumstances, import liberalization can make a positive and significant contribution to growth and development

Productivity and Employment in a Developing Country: Evidence from Republic of Korea

The paper empirically investigates the relationship between productivity and employment in Republic of Korea using structural vector autoregression (VAR) models. Productivity-enhancing technology shocks significantly increase hours worked, which lends support to the real business cycle theory. The results show that technology shocks can explain most elements of a business cycle both in the short and long run. On the other hand, demand shocks can only explain price fluctuations. The evidence thus suggests that Korean policymakers should give higher priority to supply-side policies that promote technological progress and innovation

The Effect of Imports and Exports on Total Factor Productivity in Korea

We investigate the effect of imports and exports on total factor productivity in Korea during 1980-2003. We find Granger causality from imports to total factor productivity (TFP) growth, but no causality from exports to TFP growth. We then investigate the impact of trade and other variables on TFP growth. According to our results, imports have a significant positive effect on TFP growth but exports do not. In addition, our results indicate that the positive impact of imports arises not only from the competitive pressures associated with the imports of consumer goods but also from technological transfers embodied in imports of capital goods from developed countries.

Gut microbiome and metabolome signatures in liver cirrhosis-related complications

Background/Aims Shifts in the gut microbiota and metabolites are interrelated with liver cirrhosis progression and complications. However, causal relationships have not been evaluated comprehensively. Here, we identified complication-dependent gut microbiota and metabolic signatures in patients with liver cirrhosis. Methods Microbiome taxonomic profiling was performed on 194 stool samples (52 controls and 142 cirrhosis patients) via V3-V4 16S rRNA sequencing. Next, 51 samples (17 controls and 34 cirrhosis patients) were selected for fecal metabolite profiling via gas chromatography mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Correlation analyses were performed targeting the gut-microbiota, metabolites, clinical parameters, and presence of complications (varices, ascites, peritonitis, encephalopathy, hepatorenal syndrome, hepatocellular carcinoma, and deceased). Results Veillonella bacteria, Ruminococcus gnavus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae are cirrhosis-related microbiotas compared with control group. Bacteroides ovatus, Clostridium symbiosum, Emergencia timonensis, Fusobacterium varium, and Hungatella_uc were associated with complications in the cirrhosis group. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROCs) for the diagnosis of cirrhosis, encephalopathy, hepatorenal syndrome, and deceased were 0.863, 0.733, 0.71, and 0.69, respectively. The AUROCs of mixed microbial species for the diagnosis of cirrhosis and complication were 0.808 and 0.847, respectively. According to the metabolic profile, 5 increased fecal metabolites in patients with cirrhosis were biomarkers (AUROC >0.880) for the diagnosis of cirrhosis and complications. Clinical markers were significantly correlated with the gut microbiota and metabolites. Conclusions Cirrhosis-dependent gut microbiota and metabolites present unique signatures that can be used as noninvasive biomarkers for the diagnosis of cirrhosis and its complications

HyperCLOVA X Technical Report

We introduce HyperCLOVA X, a family of large language models (LLMs) tailored to the Korean language and culture, along with competitive capabilities in English, math, and coding. HyperCLOVA X was trained on a balanced mix of Korean, English, and code data, followed by instruction-tuning with high-quality human-annotated datasets while abiding by strict safety guidelines reflecting our commitment to responsible AI. The model is evaluated across various benchmarks, including comprehensive reasoning, knowledge, commonsense, factuality, coding, math, chatting, instruction-following, and harmlessness, in both Korean and English. HyperCLOVA X exhibits strong reasoning capabilities in Korean backed by a deep understanding of the language and cultural nuances. Further analysis of the inherent bilingual nature and its extension to multilingualism highlights the model's cross-lingual proficiency and strong generalization ability to untargeted languages, including machine translation between several language pairs and cross-lingual inference tasks. We believe that HyperCLOVA X can provide helpful guidance for regions or countries in developing their sovereign LLMs.Comment: 44 pages; updated authors list and fixed author name

Uncertainty, Credit and Investment: Evidence from Firm-Bank Matched Data

This paper studies how high uncertainty affects corporate bank loans, addressing the important identification issue. In times of high uncertainty, firms reduce their credit demand due to delayed investments or a deterioration in their credit worthiness, while at the same time banks are more exposed to negative shocks to their balance sheet and thereby reduce credit supply. To isolate the uncertainty effect from the credit supply effect, we employ matched bank-firm loan data covering all loans extended by all financial intermediaries to the universe of listed firms in Korea, a bank-centered economy. Our empirical results reveal that a failure to control for credit supply leads to overestimation of the negative effect of uncertainty on bank loans. In addition, we find that the negative effect is stronger for relatively larger firms or financially unconstrained firms with low leverage or financial slack, once credit supply is controlled for. We confirm the same results in the analysis of firm investment, suggesting that high uncertainty may transmit to investment and bank loans mainly through the real options effects.I. Introduction II. Empirical Framework III. Data IV. Results V. Conclusions References Appendi