Visible Success and Invisible Failure in Post-Crisis Economic Reform in Korea : Interplay of the Global Standards, Agents and Local Specificity

Abstract

Post-crisis reform was one of the most comprehensive and decisive reform that was implemented in Korea. This paper develops a model of reform dynamics. This paper subsequently uses this model to discuss the following arguments. First, while reform tends to achieve some nominal success in terms of making new laws and several quantifiable targets, it has not been able to achieve much success in really changing institutional conventions, habit and beliefs, such as enhancing transparency in the management or trust in labor relations. Second, it had mixed results as a result of the reform process involved tension between global standard and local specificity. Third, one source of the implementation difficulty in reform has to do with the institutional complementarities, and we need to take a proper sequence in reforms. One possible logical sequence seems to be moving from banking reform, corporate governance, labor relations, and finally to business restructuring. The paper concludes by tossing up a question of whether the Korean response (the reform blueprint) was right.