Korea’s Challenges Ahead—Lessons from Japan’s Experience

Korea’s Challenges Ahead—Lessons from Japan’s Experience PDF Author: Ms.Edda Zoli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475568894
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 18

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Book Description
This paper draws out the parallels between Korea and Japan in terms of demographics, potential growth, balance sheets, asset prices and inflation. Korea’s demographic trends seem to track Japan’s with a lag of about 20 years. Low productivity in the service sector and labor market duality are common to both countries and need to be addressed with structural reforms. While Korea’s corporate balance sheets are stronger than Japan’s in the early 1990s, Korea needs to progress with the restructuring of nonviable firms to avoid the adverse consequences of delayed balance-sheet repair that Japan experienced. Given its strong fiscal balance sheet position, Korea can afford using fiscal policy actively to incentivize corporate restructuring and structural reforms and cushion their possible short-term adverse impact. Korea can prevent bubbles in asset prices that were at the origin of Japan’s initial crisis with the continued use of macroprudential policies. Although Korea does not appear to be headed toward deflation, new econometric analysis presented in the paper suggests that aging will exert a downward drag on its inflation going forward.

Korea’s Challenges Ahead—Lessons from Japan’s Experience

Korea’s Challenges Ahead—Lessons from Japan’s Experience PDF Author: Ms.Edda Zoli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475568894
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 18

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper draws out the parallels between Korea and Japan in terms of demographics, potential growth, balance sheets, asset prices and inflation. Korea’s demographic trends seem to track Japan’s with a lag of about 20 years. Low productivity in the service sector and labor market duality are common to both countries and need to be addressed with structural reforms. While Korea’s corporate balance sheets are stronger than Japan’s in the early 1990s, Korea needs to progress with the restructuring of nonviable firms to avoid the adverse consequences of delayed balance-sheet repair that Japan experienced. Given its strong fiscal balance sheet position, Korea can afford using fiscal policy actively to incentivize corporate restructuring and structural reforms and cushion their possible short-term adverse impact. Korea can prevent bubbles in asset prices that were at the origin of Japan’s initial crisis with the continued use of macroprudential policies. Although Korea does not appear to be headed toward deflation, new econometric analysis presented in the paper suggests that aging will exert a downward drag on its inflation going forward.

Developmental Mindset

Developmental Mindset PDF Author: Elizabeth Thurbon
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501704168
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
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.

Japan’s Lost Decade

Japan’s Lost Decade PDF Author: Naoyuki Yoshino
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 981105021X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
This book discusses Japan’s long-term economic recession and provides remedies for that recession that are useful for other Asian economies. The book addresses why Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of its economic bubble in the 1990s. Its empirical analysis challenges the beliefs of some economists, such as Paul Krugman, that the Japanese economy is caught in a liquidity trap. This book argues that Japan’s economic stagnation stems from a vertical “investment–saving” (IS) curve rather than a liquidity trap. The impact of fiscal policy has declined drastically, and the Japanese economy faces structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. These structural problems have many causes: an aging demographic (a problem that is frequently overlooked), an over-reliance by local governments on transfers from the central government, and Basel capital requirements that have made Japanese banks reluctant to lend money to start-up businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This latter issue has discouraged Japanese innovation and technological progress. All these issues are addressed empirically and theoretically, and several remedies for Japan’s long-lasting recession are provided. This volume will be of interest to researchers and policy makers not only in Japan but also the People’s Republic of China, many countries in the eurozone, and the United States, which may face similar challenges in the future.

Republic of Korea

Republic of Korea PDF Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484341635
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
This Selected Issues chapter outlines a strategy to facilitate this and navigate the more challenging monetary environment, involving enhanced communication of policy interest rate intentions and inflation-forecast targeting. The reduction in the inflation target by a percentage point to 2 percent in January 2016 weakened the nominal anchor. Monetary policy can play a role rebuilding the credibility of the anchor more rapidly through the adoption of inflation-forecast targeting. This strengthening of the monetary policy framework involves enhancing communications. An effective, credible monetary policy cannot address all macroeconomic challenges facing Korea. Rather, it can foster robust growth with low inflation, providing a stable and predictable environment that allows other policies to work more effectively. These other policies play a complementary role. Fiscal policy can reinforce the effectiveness of monetary policy, as illustrated by model scenarios. Structural policies can also support monetary policy by, for example, boosting potential growth.

Connecting People with Jobs Towards Better Social and Employment Security in Korea

Connecting People with Jobs Towards Better Social and Employment Security in Korea PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
ISBN: 9264288252
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
This report has a special focus on low-income groups, jobseekers and workers, and policies geared towards closing the considerable gaps these groups are facing around income and employment support in Korea. It concludes that significant additional action will be needed to make income...

A New Strategy for Korea’s Fiscal Policy in a Low Growth Environment

A New Strategy for Korea’s Fiscal Policy in a Low Growth Environment PDF Author: Ms.Edda Zoli
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484353986
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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Book Description
Adverse demographics and other structural weaknesses impinge on Korea’s long-term fiscal outlook and potential growth. Moreover, inadequate social protection is creating poverty and dampening consumption. The paper presents projections of Korea’s fiscal outlook, using new estimates of potential growth obtained with a novel multivariate filter. It shows that keeping fiscal revenues-to-GDP constant would result in an explosive public debt dynamic in the long term. Then, through simulations of the Flexible System of Global Models, the paper analyzes policies to preserve fiscal sustainability, while boosting potential growth and social protection. It concludes that with greater revenue mobilization, Korea can stabilize debt-to-GDP well below “dangerous” levels. Policies to address Korea’s challenges include higher targeted transfers to the most vulnerable and fiscal measures to support female labor force participation and employment, accompanied by product and labor market reforms.

Extreme Economies

Extreme Economies PDF Author: Richard Davies
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1250170508
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
A New Statesman best book of the year | New York Times Editors' Choice pick A Financial Times best economics book of 2019 An accessible, story-driven look at the future of the global economy, written by a leading expert To predict our future, we must look to the extremes. So argues the economist Richard Davies, who takes readers to the margins of the modern economy and beyond in his globe-trotting book. From a prison in rural Louisiana where inmates purchase drugs with prepaid cash cards to the poorest major city on earth, where residents buy clean water in plastic bags, from the world’s first digital state to a prefecture in Japan whose population is the oldest in the world, how these extreme economies function—most often well outside any official oversight—offers a glimpse of the forces that underlie human resilience, drive societies to failure, and will come to shape our collective future. While the people who inhabit these places have long been dismissed or ignored, Extreme Economies revives a foundational idea from medical science to turn the logic of modern economics on its head, arguing that the outlier economies are the place to learn about our own future. Whether following Punjabi migrants through the lawless Panamanian jungle or visiting a day-care for the elderly modeled after a casino, Davies brings a storyteller’s eye to places where the economy has been destroyed, distorted, and even turbocharged. In adapting to circumstances that would be unimaginable to most of us, the people he encounters along the way have helped to pioneer the economic infrastructure of the future. At once personal and keenly analytical, Extreme Economies is an epic travelogue for the age of global turbulence, shedding light on today’s most pressing economic questions.

Sovereign Debt Crises

Sovereign Debt Crises PDF Author: Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316510441
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Contributes to a better understanding of the policy, economic, and legal options of countries struggling with debt problems.

IMF Research Bulletin, Summer 2017

IMF Research Bulletin, Summer 2017 PDF Author: International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484315448
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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Book Description
The Summer 2017 issue of the IMF Research Bulletin highlights new research such as recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes. The Research Summaries are “Structural Reform Packages, Sequencing, and the Informal Economy (by Zsuzsa Munkacsi and Magnus Saxegaard) and “A Broken Social Contract, Not High Inequality Led to the Arab Spring” (by Shantayanan Devarajan and Elena Ianchovichina). The Q&A section features “Seven Questions on Fintech” (by Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli). The Bulletin also includes information on recommended titles from IMF Publications and the latest articles from the IMF Economic Review.

Human Capital and Development

Human Capital and Development PDF Author: Ju-Ho Lee
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786436973
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
During recent decades, Korea has been one of only a handful of countries that have made the successful transformation to become a developed nation by simultaneously achieving persistent economic growth combined with a democratic political system. Experts and political leaders worldwide have attributed this achievement to investments in people or, in other words, the power of education. Whilst numerous books have highlighted the role of industrial policies, technological growth, and international trade in Korea’s development process, this is one of the first to focus on the role of human capital. It shows how the accumulation of human capital aided transformation and helps explain the policies, strategies and challenges that Korea faces now and in the future.