Minsoo Han: The main contribution of Chun, Hur, Kim, and Kwon (henceforth CHKK) is the identification of two facts about intra-firm trade in Korean and Japanese manufacturing industries. The first fact they find is that intra-firm trade is concentrated among a small number of large parent firms and their affiliates. Second, they find that the input–output (IO) coefficient linking the parent's and affiliate's industries of operation is not strongly related to a corresponding intra-firm trade flow of goods.
In terms of findings and approach, Ramondo et al. (2016, henceforth RRR) are the most closely related previous study. Therefore, comparing these two studies will help to understand the innovation in CHKK. The first finding in CHKK is similar to but slightly different from RRR, one of whose finding is that intra-firm trade is concentrated among a small number of large affiliates within large multinational corporations (MNCs) in the United...