Koreas Economic Crisis and Cultural Transition toward Individualism文档.pdfVIP

Korea’s Economic Crisis and Cultural Transition toward Individualism Ho-Chul Lee, Ministry of Finance and Economy, Republic of Korea Mary Patricia McNulty, George Washington University, USA. This study re-examines the causes of Korea’s 1997 financial crisis from a cultural point of view in response to remaining questions such as the sudden collapse of Korea’s healthy- looking economy. This paper was written when the authors were at the Office of the Senior Vice President for Economic Development and Chief Economist at the World Bank in Washington, DC. We thank participants at seminars at the World Bank on November 27, 2002, at the George Washington University on December 6, 2002, and at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Cabinet Off ice on February 20, 2003 for their comments and insights. We also thank many colleagues at the World Bank, the Asian Study Group, and George Washington University for the opportunity to exchange ideas and develop ideas as well their comments. In particular, we are grateful to Noriki Hirose, Yutaka Harada, Osamu Yoshida, Takashi Omori, Masatoshi Matsumura, Masakatsu Tamaru, Michiko Yamashita, Noriko Tamachi, and Hideaki Hirata for thoughtful and extensive comments. But those people who gave comments are not responsible for the conclusions or any errors in this paper which remain entirely the responsibility of the authors. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to the Cabinet Office, the World Bank, or their affiliated organizations. Abstract Despite many analyses of the causes of Korea’s 1997 financial crisis three questions