Interpreting the Korean crisis: financial liberalisation, industrial policy and corporate governance

The article examines the three most contentious issues regarding the origins of and the solutions to the current Korean crisis—namely, financial liberalisation, industrial policy, and corporate governance. The authors argue that it was the dismantling of the traditional mechanisms of industrial policy and financial regulation, rather than the perpetuation of the traditional regime, that generated the crisis. They also point out that the allegedly pathological corporate governance system was neither a main cause of the crisis on its own, nor something that needs radical restructuring in the Anglo-American direction before the country can resume its growth.