Going forward, Korea faces two closely related challenges: sustaining economic growth against the backdrop of a rapidly aging population and ameliorating income inequality. This paper argues that a gradual increase in social spending could promote more sustainable and inclusive growth in Korea....

Going forward, Korea faces two closely related challenges: sustaining economic growth against the backdrop of a rapidly aging population and ameliorating income inequality. This paper argues that a gradual increase in social spending could promote more sustainable and inclusive growth in Korea....

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is...

Korea’s rapid growth has slowed in recent years, suggesting lower potential growth. This paper uses an array of techniques, including statistical filters, a multivariate model and the production function, to estimate Korea’s potential growth. The main finding is that trend growth has fallen...

We examine how Korea’s capital flows and trade have been affected by the quantitative easing (QE) of the United States and the quantitative and qualitative easing (QQME) of Japan. Korea is an intriguing case due to its borderline position between advanced and emerging market country groups,...

This paper looks at the empirical record whether big infrastructure and public capital drives have succeeded in accelerating economic growth in low-income countries. It looks at big long-lasting drives in public capital spending, as these were arguably clear and exogenous policy decisions. On...

While the Korean unemployment rates are currently among the lowest in OECD countries, the labor market duality and the underemployment in some segments of the population are important labor market challenges, and factors contributing to lower potential growth. The paper shows the benefits of...

This paper assesses the interconnectedness across Korean banks using three alternative methodologies. Two methodologies utilize high frequency financial data while the third uses bank balance sheet data to assess banks' bilateral exposures, systemically vulnerable banks, and systemically risky...

Korea was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis, with the foreign bank deleveraging channel coming prominently into play. The global financial crisis demonstrated that a sharp deleveraging can be transmitted to emerging markets through the bank lending channel to a slowdown in credit...

The paper describes the evolution of the corporate stock and bond markets in Korea and the Government’s role in this evolution and its policy with regard to internationalization of the capital market. The paper analyzes problems encountered in gradually opening the Korean capital market to...