Brownbag Seminar, February 1, 2007
Development economics conventionally focuses on endowments; economies with an appropriate endowment (good institutions, good investment climate, cultural dispositions, property and trade laws, as well as institutions for assuring the rule of law) grow. Those lacking such endowments do not. But the surprising frequency of spontaneous growth episodes in “poorly” endowed economies; the sharp disparities in regional developments within national economies subject to the same general rules; and the periodic successes of economies that change their institutional endowments by growing (China) rather than growing by first fixing endowments all strongly suggest fundamental flaws in this all-or-nothing endowment view. Although China is the paragon of an economy that has changed its institutional endowments by growing rather than growing by first fixing endowments, there is evidence that Korea too has experienced similar episodes of open-ended institutional experimentation (notably in the aftermath of the 1960 coup and in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis). The talk described the origin of the Korean economic system and show how Korea faced economic issues similar to those experienced by transition economies. Presentation  Initiating and Sustaining Growth Miracles: South Korea in Light of China, Wonhyuk Lim. (PDF, 197Kb)
Speaker Dr. Wonhyuk Lim is currently on leave from the Korea Development Institute where he is a Fellow in the Department of Industrial and Corporate Affairs. He is also a member of the Advisory Council for the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) and a Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Previously, he taught at the Korea Military Academy and worked as a consultant for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). Dr. Lim served as an advisor for the Presidential Committee on Northeast Asia and for the First Economic Subcommittee of the Presidential Transition Committee after the 2002 Election. His recent publications include Energy Scenarios for the DPRK: Report of the Working Group Convened by the United Nations (New York: University for Peace, 2005, co-authored), Economic Crisis and Corporate Restructuring in Korea: Reforming the Chaebol (Cambridge University Press, 2003, co-edited), and Public Enterprise Reform and Privatization in Korea: Lessons for Developing Countries (Korea Development Institute, 2003). This talk is part of a K4D project on New Industrial and Innovation Policy. For more information, please visit our website.
|
RSS