Economic Growth and Social Welfare Development in Korea: An Exploration into the Applicability of Objective Indicators in the Evaluation of Developmental Efforts

Abstract

The republic of Korea has been widely heralded as an "economic miracle." During the outgoing decade of the 1970s, the national economy of the rpublic, which was once devastated by a military conflict between superpowers, made one of the greatest leaps in the world. Its real Gross National Product(GNP) more than doubled during the ten-year period from 1969 to 1979, growing at 10 percent a year. Per capita GNP reached $1,597 in 1979, in real terms more than doubled the level of ten years before. Most unprecedentedly, Korea's overseas sales soared to $15,056 million in 1979 from a meager $87 million in 1963, showing a growth of 173 times over the 17-year period.