Open AccessLeader, Government, and Market: The Economic Development of South Korea and Taiwan in the 70s and 80s
Author(s) -
Daehoon Han
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
studies in asian social science/studies in asian social science.
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2330-2151
pISSN - 2330-2143
DOI - 10.5430/sass.v5n2p1
Subject(s) - industrialisation , government (linguistics) , mechanism (biology) , business , economic growth , economy , economic system , development economics , economics , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , epistemology
South Korea and Taiwan experienced the extremely rare type of high-level, sustained postwar economic growth.While it has attracted the attention of many scholars who found out the identical pattern of economic developmentbetween South Korea and Taiwan by focusing on the similar structural conditions, relatively less attention has beengiven to the development mechanism South Korea and Taiwan employed to develop their economy. Furthermore,few studies have highlighted the role of actors in the process of economic development in South Korea and Taiwanbecause most of previous studies have focused on the structural conditions. This study aimed to examine how SouthKorea and Taiwan have developed their economy by discovering the type of a development mechanism employed.Based on using the set of secondary data source, this study found out that South Korea and Taiwan achieved aphenomenal economic development based on the export-oriented industrialization. However, South Korean economywas developed by the government-led development mechanism, while Taiwanese economy was developed by themarket-led development mechanism. And, the difference in the way of developing their economy was mainly causedby not only several structural conditions, such as the consensus between the government and private sector over thematter of economic development, the urgency of economic development, and the existence of vertical social system,but also the characteristics, such as the leadership style of key policy makers.