South Koreans in the Debt Crisis

South Koreans in the Debt Crisis
Author: Jesook Song
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2009-08-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822390825

South Koreans in the Debt Crisis is a detailed examination of the logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis (1997–2001). Jesook Song argues that while the government proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum standard of living, it prioritized assisting those citizens perceived as embodying the neoliberal ideals of employability, flexibility, and self-sufficiency. Song demonstrates that the government was not alone in drawing distinctions between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. Progressive intellectuals, activists, and organizations also participated in the neoliberal reform project. Song traces the circulation of neoliberal concepts throughout South Korean society, among government officials, the media, intellectuals, NGO members, and educated underemployed people working in public works programs. She analyzes the embrace of partnerships between NGOs and the government, the frequent invocation of a pervasive decline in family values, the resurrection of conservative gender norms and practices, and the promotion of entrepreneurship as the key to survival. Drawing on her experience during the crisis as an employee in a public works program in Seoul, Song provides an ethnographic assessment of the efforts of the state and civilians to regulate social insecurity, instability, and inequality through assistance programs. She focuses specifically on efforts to help two populations deemed worthy of state subsidies: the “IMF homeless,” people temporarily homeless but considered employable, and the “new intellectuals,” young adults who had become professionally redundant during the crisis but had the high-tech skills necessary to lead a transformed post-crisis South Korea.

The Korean Financial Crisis of 1997—A Strategy of Financial Sector Reform

The Korean Financial Crisis of 1997—A Strategy of Financial Sector Reform
Author: Mr.Angel J. Ubide
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 67
Release: 1999-03-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451844646

After years of strong performance, Korea’s economy entered a crisis in 1997, owing largely to structural problems in its financial and corporate sectors. These problems emerged in the second half of that year, when the capital inflows that had helped finance Korea’s growth were reversed, as foreign investors—reeling from losses in other Southeast Asian economies—decided to reduce their exposure to Korea. This paper focuses on the sources of the crisis that originated in the financial sector, the measures taken to deal with it, and the evolution of key banking and financial variables in its aftermath.

Financial Crisis and Transformation of Korean Business Groups

Financial Crisis and Transformation of Korean Business Groups
Author: Sea-Jin Chang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2003-04-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1139440071

Sea-Jin Chang argues that the Korean financial crisis of 1997 was due to the inertia of both the business groups known as chaebols and the Korean government which prevented adaptation to changing external environments. Once the Korean government stopped central economic planning and pursued economic liberalization in the 1980s, the transition created a void under which neither the government nor markets could monitor chaebols' investment activities. The intricate web of cross-shareholding, debt guarantees, and vertical integration resulted in extensive cross-subsidization and kept chaebols from shedding unprofitable businesses. The government's continued interventions in banks' lending practices created 'moral hazards' for both chaebols and banks. This treatment demonstrates how the structure of chaebols later inhibited other adaptations and for all practical purposes became nearly dysfunctional. The book argues that restructuring of chaebols should focus on improving corporate governance systems. After such restructuring, the author predicts, chaebols will re-emerge as stronger, more focused global players.

Developmental Mindset

Developmental Mindset
Author: Elizabeth Thurbon
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2016-06-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501704168

The Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 was supposed to be the death knell for the developmental state. The International Monetary Fund supplied emergency funds for shattered economies but demanded that states liberalize financial markets and withdraw from direct involvement in the economy. Financial liberalization was meant to spell the end of strategic industry policy and the state-directed "policy lending" it involved. Yet, largely unremarked by analysts, South Korea has since seen a striking revival of financial activism. Policy lending by state-owned development banks has returned the state to the core of the financial system. Korean development banks now account for one quarter of all loans and take the lead in providing low-cost finance to local manufacturing firms in strategic industries.Elizabeth Thurbon argues that an ideational analysis can help explain this renewed financial activism. She demonstrates the presence of a "developmental mindset" on the part of political leaders and policy elites in Korea. This mindset involves shared ways of thinking about the purpose of finance and its relationship to the productive economy. The developmental mindset has a long history in Korea but is subject to the vicissitudes of political and economic circumstances. Thurbon traces the structural, institutional, political, and ideational factors that have strengthened and at times weakened the developmental consensus, culminating in the revival of financial activism in Korea. In doing so, Thurbon offers a novel defense of the developmental state idea and a new framework for investigating the emergence and evolution of developmental states. She also canvasses the implications of the Korean experience for wider debates concerning the future of financial activism in an era of financialization, energy insecurity, and climate change.

Developing Country Debt and the World Economy

Developing Country Debt and the World Economy
Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226733238

For dozens of developing countries, the financial upheavals of the 1980s have set back economic development by a decade or more. Poverty in those countries have intensified as they struggle under the burden of an enormous external debt. In 1988, more than six years after the onset of the crisis, almost all the debtor countries were still unable to borrow in the international capital markets on normal terms. Moreover, the world financial system has been disrupted by the prospect of widespread defaults on those debts. Because of the urgency of the present crisis, and because similar crises have recurred intermittently for at least 175 years, it is important to understand the fundamental features of the international macroeconomy and global financial markets that have contributed to this repeated instability. Developing Country Debt and the World Economy contains nontechnical versions of papers prepared under the auspices of the project on developing country debt, sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The project focuses on the middle-income developing countries, particularly those in Latin America and East Asia, although many lessons of the study should apply as well to other, poorer debtor countries. The contributors analyze the crisis from two perspectives, that of the international financial system as a whole and that of individual debtor countries. Studies of eight countries—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, and Turkey—explore the question of why some countries succumbed to serious financial crises while other did not. Each study was prepared by a team of two authors—a U.S.-based research and an economist from the country under study. An additional eight papers approach the problem of developing country debt from a global or "systemic" perspective. The topics they cover include the history of international sovereign lending and previous debt crises, the political factors that contribute to poor economic policies in many debtor nations, the role of commercial banks and the International Monetary Fund during the current crisis, the links between debt in developing countries and economic policies in the industrialized nations, and possible new approaches to the global management of the crisis.

New Millennium South Korea

New Millennium South Korea
Author: Jesook Song
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2010-10-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136916202

New Millennium South Korea focuses on South Korea’s transformation during the early years of the new millennium, the book discusses the key features of recent transformations within the country.

The Korean Financial Crisis of 1997

The Korean Financial Crisis of 1997
Author: Kyu-sŏng Yi
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

This book chronicles how Korea dealt with and overcame the crisis over time. The book is organized into eleven chapters. Chapter one outlines the troubling financial market conditions at home and abroad before the crisis. Chapter two then delves into the origin of the crisis and offers analyses on the shortcomings of the Korean economy and the instability of the international financial system. In chapter three, policy measures the government executed in the wake of the onset of the crisis are described and analyzed. Chapter four probes the steps taken to reduce the risk of sovereign insolvency in the face of the cool market reaction to the initial package of crisis response measures announced by the International Monetary Fund in December 1997. Chapter five describes the background within which the government established the institutional framework necessary for corporate, financial, and labor market restructuring between December 1997 and April 1998. The government efforts to secure additional foreign currency liquidity through the markets and to devise initiatives to counter the massive unemployment are discussed in detail. In chapter six, the situation during May and June 1998 is explored with a focus on the closure of nonviable corporate and financial companies and the efforts to drive down interest rates and revive credit flows. This is followed, in chapter seven, by an analysis of the first phase of financial sector restructuring, which started in the third quarter of 1998, and the measures adopted to shore up potential growth and cope with the pressing problem of unemployment. Chapters eight and nine deal separately with the restructuring of the top five chaebols (the large family-controlled and family-run groups that dominate business in Korea), the economic stimulus packages applied during the fourth quarter of 1998, the efforts to restore financial market stability and economic growth, and the initial phase of foreign exchange liberalization measures, which were implemented during the first half of 1999. Chapter ten then discusses the situation during the second half of 1999, with a particular focus on the collapse of the Daewoo business group, including the steps taken to contain the resulting fallout, as well as measures aimed at expanding the economic recovery. Chapter eleven, the final chapter, offers a diagnosis of the Korean economy, along with an analysis of the policy implications and the responses for the future.

The Asian Financial Crisis

The Asian Financial Crisis
Author: Morris Goldstein
Publisher: Peterson Institute
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780881322613

The turmoil that has rocked Asian markets since the middle of 1997, and that is now having such deep effects on the economies in the region, is the third major currency crisis of the 1990s. This study explains how the Asian crisis arose and spread. It then outlines the corrective policy measures that could help end the crisis, and the shortcomings that have been revealed in the international financial system that require reform to reduce the chances of a recurrence.

Global Waves of Debt

Global Waves of Debt
Author: M. Ayhan Kose
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2021-03-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464815453

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and broader-based than in the previous three waves. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging market and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks. A menu of policy options is available to reduce the likelihood that the current debt wave will end in crisis and, if crises do take place, will alleviate their impact.

Living on Your Own

Living on Your Own
Author: Jesook Song
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 166
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438450141

Living on Your Own is an ethnography of young, single women in South Korea who seek to live independently. Using extensive interviews, along with media analysis and archival research, Jesook Song traces the women's difficulties in achieving residential autonomy. Song exposes the clash between the women's burgeoning desire for independent lives and the ongoing incursion of traditional, conservative family ideology and marriage pressure into housing practices and financial institutions. She pays particular attention to the Korean rent system and the reliance on lump-sum cash even for basic subsistence, which promotes tight control of young adults' lives by family and kinship networks. The young women whose voices feature prominently in this book are a prototype of global youth in crisis: caught between aspirations for the self-development and flexible lifestyle championed by globalizing media and communication technology and the reality of their position as flexible labor in a neoliberal economy.