Browsing by Subject "Korea"

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Non-financial hurdles for human capital accumulation : landownership in Korea under Japanese rule
(2014) Kim, Tai-Yoo; Jun, Bogang
This paper suggests that inequality in landownership is a nonfinancial hurdle for human capital accumulation. It is the first to present evidence that inequality in landownership had an adverse effect on the level of public education in the Korean colonial period. Using a fixed effects model, the present research exploits variations in inequality in land concentration across regions in Korea and accounts for the unobserved heterogeneity across these regions. The analysis establishes a highly significant adverse effect of Land inequality on education in the Korean colonial period.
The legacy of Friedrich List : the expansive reproduction system and the Korean history of industrialization
(2016) Jun, Bogang; Gerybadze, Alexander; Kim, Tai-Yoo
This study revisits the theory of Friedrich List from a more comprehensive and modernized perspective and applies it to the Korean history of industrialization. Although List is well known as the scholar who insisted on the protection of infant industry, his argument on protectionism is a part of the broader picture depicted in his book The National System of Political Economy (1841). This study follows his theoretical legacy in various fields of study. Although we can find his theoretical influence in several fields of research such as the national innovation system, concept of national competitiveness, and theory of developmental state, these studies fail to embrace all the arguments of List. Additionally, theses models focus more heavily on the explanation of historical and regional development phenomena without providing general principles of economic development behind the phenomena. This study therefore aims to suggest the expansive reproduction system as a generalized and modernized version of List’s theory and to show its example by using the Korean history of industrialization. Consequently, we argue that the economic development of Korea has been achieved by putting the theory of List into practice.
The tradeoff between fertility and education : evidence from the Korean development path
(2014) Lee, Joongho; Jun, Bogang
Unified Growth Theory suggests the demographic transition and the associated rise in human capital formation were critical forces in the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern economic growth. This paper provides empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis based on the Korean industrialization in the late 20th century. Using a fixed effects model and a fixed effect two-stage least squares model, this study exploits variations in fertility and in human capital formation across regions in Korea over the period 1970 to 2010. This analysis finds a virtuous cycle, where technological progress increased the demand for human capital, leading to an increase in the level of education and, in turn, to a demographic transition. This establishes the existence of a quantity–quality tradeoff on the Korean development path.