Ha-Joon Chang

Jang-Sup Shin

The 1997 South Korean financial crisis not only shook the country itself but also sent shock waves through the financial world at large. This impressive book critically assesses the conventional wisdom surrounding the Korean crisis and the performance of the IMF-sponsored reform programme. Looking first at the strengths and weaknesses of 'Korea Inc.' in comparison with other East Asian countries, the authors describe the challenges faced by Korea in the 1990s due to the acceleration of globalization. By arguing that the transition attempted by Korea was badly conceived and ill designed, Restructuring 'Korea Inc.' focuses on corporate reform after the crisis that has led to the running up of huge 'transition costs'. This snappy, informative and readable book has a broad historical overview and with its suggestions for structural change for Korea. This book is an important contribution not only to Asian studies, but also to the study of financial crises and the political economy of economic reform.

Financial Crisis, Corporate Reform, and Institutional Transition

Restructuring 'Korea Inc.'

The 1997 South Korean financial crisis not only shook the country itself but also sent shock waves through the financial world at large. This impressive book critically assesses the conventional wisdom surrounding the Korean crisis and the performance of the IMF-sponsored reform programme. Looking first at the strengths and weaknesses of 'Korea Inc.' in comparison with other East Asian countries, the authors describe the challenges faced by Korea in the 1990s due to the acceleration of globalisation. By arguing that the transition attempted by Korea was badly conceived and ill designed, Restructuring Korea Inc. focuses on corporate reform after the crisis that has led to the running up of huge 'transition costs'. This snappy, informative and readable book has a broad historical overview and with its suggestions for structural change for Korea, this book is an important contribution not only to Asian studies, but also to the study of financial crises and the political economy of economic reform.

Restructuring Korea Inc

This book examines the spectacularly successful economies of East Asia, Japan and South Korea. The comparison of the 'catching-up' process in Japan and South Korea includes studies of the iron and steel and semi-conductor industries. The author shows the difficulties involved in trying to detect general patterns of development, as both countries appear to respond to different technological imperatives. As a result general models of development should be treated with caution, given the need to consider different historical and institutional contexts.

Catching-Up, Technology Transfer and Institutions in Germany, Japan and South Korea

The Economics of the Latecomers

William Lazonick

Predatory Value Extraction explains how an ideology of corporate resource allocation known as "maximizing shareholder value" (MSV) that emerged in the 1980s came to dominate strategic thinking in business schools and corporate boardrooms in the United States. Undermining the social foundationsof sustainable prosperity, it resulted in employment instability, income inequity, and slow productivity growth. In explaining what happened to sustainable prosperity, William Lazonick and Jang-Sup Shin focus on the growing imbalance between value creation and value extraction in the U.S. economy,and the corporate-governance institutions that determine this balance in the nation's major business corporations. The imbalance has become so extreme that predatory value extraction is now a central economic activity, to the point at which the U.S. economy as a whole can be aptly described as avalue-extracting economy.Balancing the contributions of economic actors to value creation with their power to extract value provides the foundation for stable and equitable economic growth. When certain economic actors are able to assert their power to extract far more value than they contribute to the value-creationprocess, an imbalance occurs which, when extreme, leads to dire economic, political, and social consequences. This book not only explores these consequences, but also sets out an agenda for restoring sustainable prosperity.

Jang-Sup Shin

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