China's Penetration of the Korean Market: Stylized Facts and Welfare Effect

China's penetration of the world market has been impressive. This paper uses highly disaggregated Korean import data (from 1992 to 2008) to examine China's penetration of the Korean market in the context of the composition of value (the extensive and intensive margins) and the product type (homogeneous and differentiated) in trade. The increase in Chinese imports has been attributed to the rapid increase in the import of new products (the extensive margin) and of existing products (the intensive margin). However, the growth rate of new products decelerated in the 2000s. The growth in the intensive margin was due to quantity, not price. Chinese imports to Korea did not improve over the period in terms of quality. Although Chinese products became cheaper, they were more differentiated over time. Welfare gains were realized through the expanded introduction of new products from China. However, much of the gains from Korea's Chinese product import boom were realized in earlier years (1992–2000) because even though imported products became more differentiated, the increase in the extensive margin was lower in more recent years (2001–2008).