Taking a Turnpike : A Korean Perspective

Catch-up is very much like taking interstate turnpikes to travel from a destitute backward state to an advanced state of material affluence in the shortest time. This paper presents an overview of the catch-up process in Korea, analyzing the process of taking a turnpike. It delineates the advantage of export-oriented growth strategy and examines the institutionalization of an export-oriented regime in Korea. It amplifies the nature of Korea's "governed" market policies that bred the seeds of eventual catastrophe in light of the 1997 crisis that has dramatically revealed Korea's Achilles heel. It also addresses the political economy of switching turnpikes, amplifying the necessity of a fundamental institutional restructuring at certain points in the catch-up process