http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15700615-01601005

What is it about?

This paper analyses the importance of a developmental regulation system in the economic policy path of Korea since the 1960s. This system has three dimensions: proscriptive (i.e. determining the type of activity or the price of a commodity and creating state-owned companies), prescriptive (i.e. policy recommendations) and liberalising (i.e. setting up some regulations to protect competition and prevent monopolies). The main emphasis was proscriptive and prescriptive during the first phase (1962–1993) and moved to liberalisation during the second phase (1993–2003). The third phase (2003– present) has been focused on a balanced combination of all three dimensions. This paper shows how the Korean state has implemented a system of developmental regulation to strengthen public and private enterprises, to promote direct and indirect management of these firm, and to move towards long-term economic policy effectiveness in order to serve national industrialisation and sustainable growth.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

South Korea is an industrial country with industrial goods export; country that has 50.42 million population, gross domestic product (GDP) 1.410 trillion (current US$), GDP growth 3.3%, inflation 1.3% and GNI per capita 27090 (current US$) (worldbank.org). We will face with the country has now become drastically different if come back from what it was half a century ago. At the beginning of 1960, South Korea was a country with 25 million population, GDP 2.36 billion (current US$), GDP growth probably less than 2% and inflation 16% (tradingeconomics.com; worldbank.org; kostat.go.kr). In the early 1960s, GNI per capita of Korea was 87 US$ less than GNI per capita of Haiti, Ethiopia and Yemen at the time. More than 40% of the population was under the poverty line (Harvie and Lee, 2003). The main exports of the Korea at that time were cotton textiles, wigs and sugar. What factors led to such a poor country to become one of the world’s richest countries with advanced goods export?