Search

This article examines the literary predecessors of contemporary South Korean wealth inequality critiques, arguing for the inseparability of such parables, particularly Lee Chang-dong's (Yi Ch'angdong T'MM) burning (Poning "IT 2018), from a contested tradition of writing about generational poverty and discrimination. Focusing on literary representations of the Cold War-era guilt-by-association system oryonjwaje it draws out the relationship between the anti-communist epistemologies of authoritarian regimes, the right-wing literature of Yi Munyöl T@H, and the leftist-nationalist allegories of Lee, a novelist before his turn to film. United by what Eve Sedgwick has identified as paranoid epistemologies of exposure, these diverse forms of writing revolved around the investigation of the identity of the alleged traitor, often the spectral leftist father blamed for the socioeconomic immobility of his surviving family members. Whether reactionary or subversive, such texts affirmed the inescapability and rigidity of patrilineal inheritance, an understanding of identity and kinship that the feminist works of Ch'oe Yun and Pak Wansö would challenge in two critical ways. First, these works highlighted the mutual constitution of war and domesticity, destabilizing visions of the individual or family as separate from and aligned against the social order; second, they revealed the origins of an enduring Cold War subjectivity of exposure in Korean War-era state apparatuses of identification, drawing attention to the complicity of the act of writing in the perpetuation of the sociocultural structure of the yonjwaje even after its legal abolition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Accounting Research is the property of Canadian Academic Accounting Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From a developmental perspective, South Korea would seem to have long ago put the challenges of the Middle Income Trap behind it. This supposed economic Miracle on the Han River has been matched by a similar political miracle with democratic transition followed by consolidation. Yet middle income economic conceptualization is too narrow, with contemporary observers taking into account the political economy of change as well, emphasizing how development paths are often the outcome of a struggle between those who benefit from the status quo and those who seek change " a broader Transformation Trap. Likewise, even after transition and consolidation, the quality of democratic governance can remain poor, or thin. In South Korea, as with many Asian societies, the balance of power is tilted in favor of forces preserving the status quo. This article examines South Korea's escape from the developmental Transformation Trap through the interplay of state and the economy. It considers state-society achievements as well as ongoing challenges of the political Transformation Trap. It concludes with ongoing and future challenges along the economy-society nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper raises a fundamental question with regard to the trajectory of capitalism in Korea, whether Korea is still "fast-following" developed countries and on-track to converge with their economic systems, or continues to forge a unique development path different from that of the mature capitalist economies. In an explorative effort to answer this question, this paper compares the key outcome variables of the Korean economy with those of other economies by taking the variety of capitalism (VoC) perspective. Existing evidence may point to the possibility of Korean capitalism converging with a U.S.- and U.K.-style liberal market economy (the so-called "Anglo–Saxon" economy) in terms of slow-down of growth, rising unemployment, and higher income inequality, despite the differences in several underlying institutions, such as the national innovation systems and corporate governance and ownership. The driving forces for convergence seem to be the ongoing trend of financialization and the rise of shareholder capitalism, which is perceived to be the cause of low investment and high inequality. This paper is one of the first calls to consider a switch from the existing "catch-up and post catch-up" framework to the new "catch-up and convergence" framework when assessing the past, present, and future capitalism in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ronald Dore's 1977 article in Pacific Affairs, "South Korean Development in Wider Perspective," is a rare example of the scholar known for his writings on Japan applying his analytical lens on South Korea. What were some of this article's most notable areas of foresight and elision related to development studies? This essay answers this question by interpreting connections to publications before and after 1977 to analyze areas of insight under the rubric of "discernment" and overlooked subjects under "death." On one hand, Dore's essay was ahead of the curve in its deft foreshadowing of post-developmentalist, varieties of capitalism, and developmental state approaches to economic development. On the other, Dore sidestepped the effects of death on economic development in three forms: literal-- effects of changing mortality rates on investments in education and human capital; industries related to death--wars, munitions production and arms expenditures; and the aftereffects of the death of a scholar--the revisiting and renewal of debates that can sometimes emerge as a result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the Trump administration and the subsequent U.S.–China trade conflict, South Korea's trade policy is under immense pressure. The KORUS FTA has been pushed for renegotiation while the China–South Korea trade relations have stumbled after the THAAD deployment to South Korea. This challenge can be characterized by the economic-security nexus shifted from positive to negative: that is, South Korea is compelled to either sacrifice its economic benefits in favor of security interest or vice versa. In contrast to Japan that seeks to retain TPP as a way of benefitting from a regionwide trade integration and balancing both Trump unilateralism and Chinese mercantilist influence, South Korea is forced to play a more complex game. Given its deep yet asymmetric economic interdependence with China and North Korean security threats, South Korea needs to accommodate China while at the same time courting US engagement in resolving the North Korean nuclear problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global trend of garnering the innovative potential of creative economy has also accelerated in South Korea where 'creativity' has recently become a nationwide buzz word. While economic instrumentality underpins the global proliferation of creativity discourse, it has been argued that the contemporary cultural sector is affected by neoliberal norms and hyper-competitive individualism. Notwithstanding such disciplining of creativity, this paper attempts to look into the complexity of cultural work which cannot be solely explained by the ascendant neoliberal ethos. To this end, the paper draws upon interviews carried out in 2016 with youth cultural workers, particularly who commit to independent, small scale creative work, in the city of Daegu. Based on an exploration of their locally oriented moral motivations and how they describe and practice their own work, the paper aims to discuss the ways in which they contribute to local cultural ecologies through their socially engaged creative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the determinants of currency invoicing in trade using import and export transactions data between Korea and its 30 major trading partners from 2000 to 2013. We find a noticeably different pattern of currency invoicing from advanced countries. For example, a large market share of Korean exporters in partner countries does not guarantee more use of the Korean won in currency invoicing. This might be attributed to a low degree of Korean won's internationalisation and the strong coalescing effect. We also observe that the higher the level of industry product differentiation, the weaker the coalescing motive. In addition, we verify that the share of invoicing in the currency of Korea's trading partner tends to be higher when the partner country has (i) a larger trade volume, (ii) higher level of financial development, (iii) lower inflation and lower price volatility and (iv) its own currency with lower transaction costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: In 2005, South Korea initiated the 15‐year National Eco‐Industrial Park Development Program in three stages to gradually transform aged industrial complexes into eco‐industrial parks (EIPs) by promoting industrial symbiosis (IS). Building upon the pilot experiences from the first 5 years, the second phase of the program focused on the scaling‐up of IS at a broader regional level. Key scaling‐up strategies included the expansion of target areas by connecting multiple industrial complexes, the standardization of processes and dissemination of learning, and the development of large‐scale projects that could contribute to the regional development. In this study, we examined the evolution of IS over the last 10 years between 2005 and 2014, primarily to understand the characteristics and impact of these scaling‐up strategies. Our findings showed that the scale of IS in the second phase had increased in various aspects in comparison to that in the first phase. The number of operating projects had increased from 52 to 159, the number of participating firms increased from 90 to 596, and the average distance of IS increased from 40 to 48 kilometers. The size of economic and environmental benefits also increased along with an increase in the private investment and government research funding. We further analyzed the role of the regional EIP centers as facilitators, how their activities influenced the scaling‐up of IS, and discussed the characteristics of the Korea's approach to IS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea has achieved unprecedented economic and social development in history. This country, which had been among the poorest in the world until the early 1960s, became one of the world’s leading economies by the mid-1990s as demonstrated by high per-capita income and world-class industries. In the early 1960s, Korea had much of the characteristics shared by many developing countries today, such as prevalent poverty, low economic productivity, low levels of technology and entrepreneurship in society, insufficient capital, poor endowment of natural resources, over-population in a relatively small territory, and internal political instability and external threats to its security. Korea has successfully overcome these obstacles and achieved economic development within a single generation. Korea’s success in economic development was also accompanied by the advancement of the rule of law and elective democracy by the 1990s. What are the causes of this unprecedented success? This article, applying a recently developed theory of law and development, explores the legal and institutional dimensions of Korea’s development and draws lessons from its successful development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature has found that inter-firm cooperation leads to higher growth rates for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, these studies have focused only on direct effects, such as subcontracting, rather than on spillover effects in supply chain networks (SCNs). Regarding the spillover effects, this article investigates whether a large firm's growth leads to the growth of the directly and indirectly related SMEs in its SCN, using Korean firm-level data with the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The estimation results show that increases in the sales of large firms significantly affect the growth rates of the related SMEs. These effects, however, diminish as the relationship with the large firm goes down from the first vendor to the second vendor and from the second vendor to the third vendor. In the case of Korea, when a large firm grows by 1%, the first vendor grows by 0.38-0.44%, but the growth rates of the second and third vendors are only 0.036-0.047%and 0.003-0.005%, respectively. Thus, while there are spillover effects, the effects are weak. We discuss what these findings mean for national economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream globalization literature has maintained that a rapidly globalizing economy and neo-liberal reforms will lead to the emergence of a transnational business elite. The South Korean economy has implemented neo-liberal policies and reforms since the Asian financial crisis and has rapidly integrated into the global economy; these developments have occurred simultaneously with the globalization and growth of the Korean economy. Have these transitions led to the transnationalization of the corporate elite in South Korea? Using life-course data for top Korean managers from the top 100 industrial enterprises in 2010 and 2015, including information on educational background, career and mobility patterns, and the share of globally recruited top managers, we explore the evidence for the emergence of a transnational business elite in Korea. Our analysis indicates that nationally recruited company men - not global job- and company-hoppers - are still predominant in the South Korean economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing work‐life balance abroad is considered as one of the key challenges associated with expatriation. That is particularly true when the enactment of the work‐life boundaries of expatriates' home and host countries diverge. Drawing from boundary theory, we investigate whether and how expatriates experience cross‐cultural challenges in terms of their work‐life boundaries abroad. We interviewed 28 German expatriates in South Korea because both cultures differ substantially in terms of their preferred work‐life boundaries. Our study shows that perceived work‐life boundary pressures in the foreign environment and willingness to adjust to the local work‐life boundary culture vary substantially among expatriates. Based on a function of these two forces, we develop a typology of four work‐life boundary adjustment styles and relate them to work‐life balance satisfaction. Furthermore, we identify individual and organizational factors that influence expatriates' work‐life boundary adjustment styles. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the combination of immature welfare state and expansion of the service economy, in particular, contributes to the precariousness of the elderly labour market in South Korea where nearly half of the elderly live below the poverty line. It completes an empirical analysis of how elderly workers in Korea are participating in the labour market and examines their situation using a conceptualisation of "precariousness." It is explained how the elderly in an immature welfare state are pushed into bad jobs resulting in a large number of precarious "elderly workers" in an economically advanced country. Results of the statistical analysis suggest that, due to severe precariousness, the Korean elderly are unable to escape from poverty even though they work. Also, gender segregation of precariousness in the service industry has been exacerbated in the elderly labour market. Structural change such as the rapid transition to a service-oriented economy has a greater impact on elderly women than middle aged or elderly men because elderly women tend to have lower skill levels and shorter careers, mainly entering service occupations where the bad jobs are concentrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: South Korea created a mechanism that fuels inclusive growth, a process that coevolves economic growth and social well‐being. This study attempts to elaborate on the context and preconditions for development that would manifest salience policy implications for moving up the industrial value chain and attain inclusive growth. We contend against the view of simplified growth cum equity that is used to elucidate the success of Korea's socioeconomic development (economic miracles). Our findings informed us that there were intense measures taken throughout different phases of Korea's industrial development. In addition, we observed in many occasions intense negotiations between the state, firms, and civil society for social welfare and a better working environment. This led to a pursuit for inclusive growth in the post catching‐up phase that blended together many inclusive agendas, realizing growth that coevolved industrial upgrading and social welfare. This article seeks to explain how Korea populated its arena of inclusion in the process of pursuing rapid industrialization. The overview of different phases of development provides normative principles that are useful as a guide for other economies which aspire to attain similar development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses why and how South Korea's financial system has diverged drastically from the Japanese model since the early 1980s and has turned to the US model, which is often regarded as a more market-oriented financial system. The paper traces the rise of American-trained Korean economists in the Economic Planning Board and their collaboration with other such economists in public and private economic institutes and academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Since the currency crisis in 1998, Korea has experienced continuous current account surpluses. Recently, the current account surplus increased more rapidly—amounting to 7.7 percent of GDP in 2015. In this paper, we investigate the underlying reasons for the widening of Korea's current account surpluses. We find that the upward trend in Korea's current account surpluses is largely explained by its demographical changes. Other economic variables are only helpful when explaining short run fluctuations in current account balances. Moreover, we show that Korea's current account surplus is expected to disappear by 2042 as it becomes one of the most aged economies in the world. Demographic changes are so powerful that they explain, quite successfully, the current account balance trends of other economies with highly aged populations such as Japan, Germany, Italy, Finland, and Greece. When we add the real exchange rate as an additional explanatory variable, it is statistically significant with the right sign, but the magnitude explained by it is quite limited. For example, to reduce the current account surplus by 1 percentage point, a 12 percent depreciation is needed. If Korea's current exchange rate is undervalued 4 to 12 percent less than the level consistent with fundamentals, it is impossible to reduce Korea's current account surplus to a reasonable level by adjusting the exchange rate alone. Another way to reduce current account surplus is to expand fiscal policies. We find, however, that the impact of fiscal adjustments in reducing current account surplus is even more limited. According to our estimates, reducing the current account surplus by 1 percentage point requires an increase in budget deficits (as a ratio to GDP) of 5 to 6 percentage points. If we allow endogenous movements of exchange rate and fiscal policy, the impact of exchange rate adjustment increases by 1.6 times but that of fiscal policy decreases that it is no longer statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine heavy industrialization and second tier urbanization in South Korea during the 1970s from a geopolitical economic perspective. We highlight the crucial, spatially complex geopolitical process of forming transnational class alliances, embedded in Cold War geopolitics, which has been neglected within state-centric developmental state theories and approaches to urbanization. Specifically, we trace the changes in the state’s original developmental plan for promoting the machinery industry in the southeast region during the 1960s and 1970s. We show how Hyundai, one of the most dominant chaebols, grew to exercise decisive influence over the state’s developmental strategy and became a powerhouse in the Korean economy, particularly in the city of Ulsan. Based on a case study of the Four Core Plants Plan, we show that the success of Hyundai was not an outcome of the effectiveness of the state’s developmental policy but was, ironically, due to the failure of the government’s original plan. The successful substitution of Hyundai’s own strategy for the state’s plan, which contributed enormously to the growth of Ulsan, would have been impossible without Hyundai’s enrollment into the transnational geopolitical economic alliance spurred by US military projects in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how South Korean policy field in the 1990s adopted Western style place-marketing strategies, and put them into practice as cultural revitalization programs of different Korean cities. The emergence of place marketing in Korea as a new paradigm for local growth stems from Korea’s transition from a developmental to a post-developmental system, which was a conjunctural outcome of democratization, neoliberalization and administrative decentralization of the early 1990s. This paper interrogates how place marketing traveled from the West to Korea in this context. In particular, it attends to how critical urbanists in Korea became a vanguard in mobilizing and developing place marketing for different local governments, perceiving it as a progressive alternative to the authoritarian, economy-centric developmentalist urban paradigm of the previous decades, despite its entanglement in the neoliberal urban paradigm of the West. The paper also examines the contradictions and conflicts that place-marketing policies have generated across different places in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite negative public opinion, the role of the Korean government has expanded, while overcoming two rounds of global financial crises. The phenomenon of the re-swelling state is mainly attributed to the strengthening of the central bureaucracy, in particular the financial bureaucracy, rather than the whole central government or the state. The argument of the strengthening of the ‘state’ or the ‘government’ after economic crises might be subject to the error of generalization. Through the two rounds of economic crises, the financial bureaucracy succeeded in acquiring the authority of market supervision and industrial support. In consequence, the bureaucracy's institutional supremacy within the government grew less challenged. The central bureaucracy was no longer the loyal servant to the President. It has reinforced its institutional strength and autonomy vis-a-vis the President, the National Assembly, the Central Bank and civil society, under the pretext of building up the rational and autonomous market and democratic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the policy changes that take place even when though internal institutions and external environments are stable. It tracks the answer to a couple of questions: Does the content of economic policy direction change every year in a more stable macroeconomic environment? If it changes, how can this be explained by theory? To investigate these changes, Korean annual economic policy direction reports released from the Ministry of the Interior were collected. Through text mining analysis, the words in the reports from over 24 years (from 1993 to 2016) were examined. The analytical results show that policy elites constantly compete to influence the policy by keeping themselves in the past to acquire and maintain legitimate authority while responding to the government’s needs for creative innovation and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates stock price movements in response to macroeconomic shocks, allowing for asymmetry in this relationship. Given Ferson’s (1989) finding that large and small stocks can exhibit different risk behaviors, we examine the behaviors of the KOSPI and KOSDAQ stock markets in response to changes in the price level, real interest rate, and real USD/KRW exchange rate using simple and nonlinear autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) models. We find that the long-run effects of macroeconomic shocks are relatively insignificant under the simple ARDL model, whereas a significant and negative long-run effect is found for almost every explanatory variable–market pair under the nonlinear model. In addition, we find that the long-run effects of stock price shocks on macroeconomic variables are more significant under the nonlinear model. Overall, the results imply that it is difficult to identify the relationship between macroeconomic variables and stock price dynamics without considering asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the indicators of economic policy uncertainty developed by Baker et al. (2016), this paper investigates the effects of the US economic policy uncertainty on the Korea economic uncertainty as well as Korea-US foreign exchange risk. The key findings are that: (i) the degree of spillovers of policy uncertainty from the US to Korea is considerable but not comparatively high; (ii) the US policy uncertainty plays a stronger and more consistent role in Korean currency risk than Korea policy uncertainty and other macro variables. It implies that the economic policy uncertainty in the US is an important contributor to Korea-US exchange rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore how investor attention paid to dangerous nuclear tests influences financial market outcomes. To measure the attention paid to North Korean nuclear threats, we introduce a weekly Google search volume index for keywords on North Korean nuclear events. Using a time‐varying structural vector autoregression model with block exogeneity restrictions, we find that investor attention paid to nuclear threats has heterogeneous effects on South Korea's stock prices across industries and over time: attention on only the first nuclear test was negatively related to the stock price index, which vanished thereafter. Moreover, the investor attention paid to the nuclear risk reduced stock prices, especially in the banking industry, during the entire sample period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sustainable business ecosystem is a source of competitiveness for firms as well as a manageable resource for gaining a competitive advantage. Strategy from the perspective of business ecosystems is particularly critical for the conglomerate or government-driven Asia pacific business environment. Among members of business ecosystems, this study focuses on customers, whose roles are overlooked in existing studies as an agent of building a sustainable business ecosystem. This study examines effects of customer participation on creating economic value and social value within the business ecosystem by conducting in-depth interviews with multiple firms in South Korea. Based on the interview data, this study develops seven propositions for the relationships between customer participation and a sustainable business ecosystem. Then, the study proposes alignment, systemization, socialization, and coevolution as four strategic actions for building sustainable business ecosystems. Also, this study offers result area of the strategic actions as the accumulation of both economic value and social value for both firms and the society. Implications based on these strategic actions and the result areas are suggested for academics and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of immigrants on the extensive and intensive margins of South Korean exports. Since trade data contain excessive zero trade flows, we adopt recently suggested Poisson and Gamma pseudo maximum likelihoods. ​​​Our finding shows that immigrant stock in South Korea has significant effect on both the extensive and intensive margins of South Korean exports. Immigrants’ network seems to decrease variable as well as fixed costs of trade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aims to examine the casino experiences of South Koreans within the framework of the four realms suggested by Pine and Gilmore's concept of the experience economy. Employing a qualitative research method, the current analysis focuses on how casinos are experienced and contextualized by contemporary South Koreans who imbue casinos with different meanings depending on how the individuals have experienced these places. The results reveal that the concept of the experience economy provides a new perspective for casino researchers to shift focus away from the rational behavior of casino visitors to focus more on their subjective and emotional experiences. The findings particularly show that South Korean casino visitors get easily absorbed in the casino environment, although they are unlikely to be completely immersed; at the same time, most of the visitors remain passive participants in gambling activities. Several salient practical implications are provided for casino researchers and marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]