Economic Growth in Korea (1911-1999): A Long-Term Trend and Perspective

Abstract

This paper provides a consistent and synthetic time-series data for the Korean economy during the twentieth century. The data being covered are value-added, employment, and capital stocks by industries during the period of 1911-99. The main sources of data are Mizoguchi and Umemura (1988) for the colonial period (1911-38) and Pyo (1998) and Pyo and Kwon (1999) for post-war period (1953-99). The data for the interim period (1939-52) are either compiled from alternative sources of data or imputed by econometric method of estimating missing observations. In order to link pre-war data with post-war data of the Republic of Korea. the pre-war data are divided between South and North Korea. The examination of long-run data provides the evidence that the continuous capital accumulation and the increase in labor productivity through industrial structural adjustment were the main sources of its late industrialization. We find the growth of the Korea economy during the twentieth century has been basically of input-driven nature with very little contribution of total factor productivity reaffirming Krugman (1994) and Pyo and Kwon (1999). But the relative contribution of total factor productivity in Mining and Manufacturing sector has not been insignificant implying that the input-driven growth was made possible through both inter-industry and intra-industry capital transformation in mainly Manufacturing sector.