Global standards and the recent economic reform in Korea

Abstract

This paper reviews and evaluates the Korean government's recent reform efforts aimed at recovering its economy fi-om crisis and bringing its governance system closer to global noms and standards. Here the so-called global standards are classified into the following three groups: The first group of global standards refers to certain economic principles or noms such as openness in trade and investment. The second encompasses a certain related set of rules of conducts, and standards of behavior governing the conducts and behavior of the national financial system and corporate sector. The third relates to certain values and norms such as environmental and labo; standards that are fashionable in the era of continued economic prosperity and social well-being. After assessing the Korean government's reform performance in these three areas, which turned out to be far from satisfactory, 1 have singled out the government's deep-rooted habit and practice of discretionary intervention as the most important obstacle that has wreaked havoc with its basically market-oriented policy and institutional reform efforts.