A Shrimp between Fighting Whales: Lessons from the Economic Convergence of South Korea

Gabor Kiss and Katalin Szoke ()
Additional contact information
Katalin Szoke: Magyar Nemzeti Bank

Financial and Economic Review, 2022, vol. 21, issue 2, 188-197

Abstract: Having started as a poor, war-worn agricultural country in the mid-20th century, South Korea is now the world's 12th largest economy. The lesson from the country's economic convergence is that export-led growth, strong corporate competitiveness and significant research and development expenditure are essential to avoiding the middle-income trap. Relying on its strong education system, South Korea managed to become a key player in many high-tech industries. However, the challenge for the future is that income inequalities exceed the average of developed countries, and the persistently low fertility rate results in an ageing society. In addition, household indebtedness exceeds 100 per cent of GDP and around half of the housing loans are variable rate loans, which jeopardises the stability of the financial system.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://en-hitelintezetiszemle.mnb.hu/letoltes/fer-21-2-fa1-kiss-szoke.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mnb:finrev:v:21:y:2022:i:2:p:188-197

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Financial and Economic Review from Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Morvay Endre ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).