The Political Economy of Korean Government Policies on Real Estate

Chung-Ho Kim and Kyung-Hwan Kim
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Chung-Ho Kim: Korea Centre for Free Enterprise, Do-Won Building, 290-20 Dowha-Dong, Mapo-Ku, Seoul, South Korea, kch@cfe.org
Kyung-Hwan Kim: Department of Economics, Sogang University, C.P.O. Box 1142, Seoul, South Korea, kyungkim@ccs.sogang.ac.kr

Urban Studies, 2000, vol. 37, issue 7, 1157-1169

Abstract: This paper investigates the driving forces behind the Korean government's real-estate policy decision-making. In particular, it tries to explain why inefficient and inequitable policies have persisted for so long, and why policy reform has been so sluggish. In order to do this, a few key regulations governing housing supply and land use are described and evaluated. These are the price control on new apartments, control on land-use conversion, green belts and spatial deconcentration policies. Next, it is demonstrated that the standard economic theory of interest-group politics is not appropriate in explaining the behaviour of the government officials in charge of these regulations. It is then suggested that a piecemeal and lukewarm approach to policy reform could be better understood in light of the behaviour of risk-averse government officials taking the political ramifications of their decisions very seriously.

Date: 2000
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:37:y:2000:i:7:p:1157-1169

DOI: 10.1080/00420980020080071

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