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These working papers on the South Korean economy are the product of an annual conference series on Korean affairs hosted by Stanford University's Korean Studies Program (KSP), and made possible by the generous support of the Koret Foundation. KSP's 2009–2010 Koret Fellow, Byongwon Bahk, a former vice finance minister and chief economic adviser to Korean president Lee Myung-bak, played a leading role in organizing the 2010 conference, authored a major paper, and co-edited this volume.

From Byongwon Bahk's preface:

The editors believe that the study of the South Korean economy holds, or should hold, interest not only for Koreans but also for Americans and the international community as a whole. Korea has become a major player in the global economy, ranking thirteenth in GDP and seventh in exports among the world's nearly 200 countries. This should no longer come as much of a surprise to consumers across the globe who use Korean cell phones, drive Korean cars, and, increasingly, enjoy Korean pop music and movies.

The Korean economy is also important as a leading model of development. In only two generations and despite national division and the devastation of civil war, South Korea has transformed itself from a largely agricultural economy to a world leader in manufacturing, which in turn facilitated its emergence as a dynamic democracy. The Korean experience holds many lessons for countries throughout the world as they also struggle to modernize in a highly competitive, globalized economy.

Korea's success in navigating the turmoil caused by the global financial crisis and recession of 2008–2009 is yet another reason for studying its economy. Despite its economy being an astounding 85 percent dependent on international trade, Korea has been among the world's leaders in recovering from the crisis. Korea owes that success in part to the very hard lessons it learned from the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998.

The five chapters selected for this compendium focus on some of the timeliest and most important issues involving the Korean economy.

Papers included in this volume:

  1. "The Changing Global and Korean Economies" by Taeho Bark
  2. "An Odyssey of the Korean Financial System and the September 2008 Financial Shock" by Thomas F. Cargill
  3. "South Korea’s Official Development Assistance Policy Under Lee Myung-bak: Humanitarian or National Interest?" by Eun Mee Kim and Ji Hyun Kim
  4. "Policy Recommendations for the Korean Economy" by Byongwon Bahk
  5. "Economic Globalization and Expatriate Labor in Korea" by Gi-Wook Shin and Joon Nak Choi
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Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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Gi-Wook Shin
Byongwon Bahk
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PESD researchers commented in the new issue of the Stanford Energy Journal on what the “shale gas revolution” means for both the U.S. and China. Mark Thurber argues that environmentalists in the U.S. should advocate for both fugitive methane regulations and increased use of gas. Jonathan Strahl and Joseph Chang foresee that economic and regulatory barriers may delay a repeat in China of the North American shale “miracle.”
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Through ongoing financial and intellectual investments in the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, individual, corporate and foundation donors contribute to our ability to deliver on our mission. In fiscal year 2012 our donors and investors supported the following priorities:

  • Research projects
  • Conferences and events

We gratefully acknowledge our 2011-2012 donors and sponsors*

Principal investor
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)

Lead Donor
Michael J. Alfant

Senior donor
Pavey Family

donors/investors
The Miner Foundation
GSR Ventures
The Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundation

Friends
BDA (China) Limited
Cypress River Advisors
Best Buy Co., Inc.

* All support acknowledged here was received between September 1, 2011 and August 31, 2012.

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Former Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Former Professor, by courtesy, of Finance at the Graduate School of Business
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Takeo Hoshi was Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor of Finance (by courtesy) at the Graduate School of Business, and Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), all at Stanford University. He served in these roles until August 2019.

Before he joined Stanford in 2012, he was Pacific Economic Cooperation Professor in International Economic Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he conducted research and taught since 1988.

Hoshi is also Visiting Scholar at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and at the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), and Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER). His main research interest includes corporate finance, banking, monetary policy and the Japanese economy.

He received 2015 Japanese Bankers Academic Research Promotion Foundation Award, 2011 Reischauer International Education Award of Japan Society of San Diego and Tijuana, 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize of Nihon Keizai Shimbun-sha, and 2005 Japan Economic Association-Nakahara Prize.  His book titled Corporate Financing and Governance in Japan: The Road to the Future (MIT Press, 2001) co-authored with Anil Kashyap (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago) received the Nikkei Award for the Best Economics Books in 2002.  Other publications include “Will the U.S. and Europe Avoid a Lost Decade?  Lessons from Japan’s Post Crisis Experience” (Joint with Anil K Kashyap), IMF Economic Review, 2015, “Japan’s Financial Regulatory Responses to the Global Financial Crisis” (Joint with Kimie Harada, Masami Imai, Satoshi Koibuchi, and Ayako Yasuda), Journal of Financial Economic Policy, 2015, “Defying Gravity: Can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis?” (Joint with Takatoshi Ito) Economic Policy, 2014, “Will the U.S. Bank Recapitalization Succeed? Eight Lessons from Japan” (with Anil Kashyap), Journal of Financial Economics, 2010, and “Zombie Lending and Depressed Restructuring in Japan” (Joint with Ricardo Caballero and Anil Kashyap), American Economic Review, December 2008.

Hoshi received his B.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Tokyo in 1983, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.

Former Director of the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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Broadcast on BBC World Service, 11:32PM, December 12, 2012
 
REAP Co-Director Scott Rozelle was interviewed on the BBC World Service "Business Daily" program about how China's education system could be stifling innovation. He discussed the nationwide college entrance exams as a barrier to innovation and explained what it could mean for China's future growth as the country moves toward a more innovation-based economy.
 
To listen to the broadcast, click here and jump to 5:28.
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Gao Kao
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North Korea has smuggled monarchy through the front door of its communist system. Korea's millennia-long history of kings and queens means that the people of the DPRK have only known monarchy or dictatorship (Japanese, 1910-45; the Kim family's, 1945--present); ordinary people frequently refer to their leader as "wang," or king. Unlike with Kim Jong Il (who resembled his mother, not his father), the regime has gone out of its way to identify Kim Jong Un with his grandfather--and the grandson, in turn, has adopted the characteristic public style of Kim Il Sung. Many American commentators mistakenly assume that when the leader dies, North Korea will be like the Soviet Union after Stalin, or China after Mao. In fact it has gone through two stable leadership transitions, in 1994 and 2011, and given Kim Jong Un's youth, there may not be another one for many years.

This event is co-sponsored by Center for East Asian Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of History and Korean Studies Program

Please register at http://ceas.stanford.edu/events/event_detail.php?id=3147.

For questions and details, please contact Ms. Marna Romanoff at romanoff@stanford.edu

Building 200 - Room 307,
Main Quad

Bruce Cumings Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History and the College and Chair of the Department of History Speaker the University of Chicago
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KSP associate director David Straub joined a panel organized by The Korea Society on February 28 to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the new South Korean government of President Park Geun-hye.

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President-elect Park Geun-hye of South Korea spoke at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in 2009. | Rod Searcey
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In a discussion paper entitled What is Governance?, Francis Fukuyama searches for a better way of measuring the quality of good governance. Fukuyama argues that current measures are woefully inadequate for complex countries - like China and the U.S. - and do not account for bureaucratic capacity and autonomy. CDDRL's Governance Project, led by Fukuyama, will begin working to develop an empirical instrument to measure governance incorporating these principles.
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