Impacts of the Korean Wave on Agricultural Food Export in Korea

Abstract

Our study analyzed the impacts of the Korean Wave on agricultural food export in Korea using a single-country gravity model. The empirical model is applied to the trade data from 2005 to 2019 for 153 countries. We added the Korean Wave as a proxy variable by collecting Korean content service exports, which include music, dramas, and movies available on streaming sites and online video services, reflecting the recent shift in media platforms. We split the data into country groups and use the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) to solve zero-trade data. Our findings show that the Korean Wave has a impact on both agricultural products and processed foods. Specifically, agricultural products are strongly influenced by the Korean Wave in Asia, while processed foods are influenced by more diverse continents. This suggests that the Korean Wave has a significant effect on agricultural food exports. We believe our study will be used as a fundamental study to prepare measures to increase agricultural exports through analysis by country.