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Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 12 , No. 2
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[ Article ]
Seoul Journal of Economics - Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 105-125
Abbreviation: SJE
ISSN: 1225-0279 (Print)
Print publication date 31 May 1999
Received Oct 1998 Revised Mar 1999

Preparing Korea for Global Competition in the 21st Century: An Agenda for Institutional Reform
Chung Hoon Lee
Professor of Economics, University of Hawaill at Manoa and Senior Fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii (1chung@hawaii.edu)

JEL Classification: O1, O5

Abstract

The paper offers some thoughts on the institutional reforms that Korea will have to undertake to achieve sustained economic growth in the 21st century. It begins with the discussion of a key institution that contributed to Korea’s rapid economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s and then argues that the demise of that institution in the later years has brought about an institutional hiatus with serious consequences to the economy. The paper then concludes that the globalizing world of the 21st century will require Korea to change many of its age-old informal institutions as they are incompatible with the formal institutions necessary for Korea to be competitive in the new world economy.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Ha-Joon Chang, Keun Lee, Ambassador Richard “Dixie” Walker, and an anonymous referee for their comments on an earlier version of the paper.

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