The South Korean financial crisis: competing explanations and policy lessons for financial liberalization

There are two types of explanations of the Asian financial crisis: the 'fundamentalist', which focuses on macroeconomic imbalances; and the 'self-fulfilling', which ascribes the crisis to beliefs. This article argues that while both have some merit in explaining the Korean crisis, neither fits the facts very well. The authors put forward a new explanation which emphasizes the role played by financial liberalization and the structural weaknesses in the banking system. They explain that the combination of these factors created conditions that made the Korean banking system vulnerable to the sentiments of foreign investors, simultaneously eroding the ability of the Korean central bank to act effectively as a lender of last resort. The authors examine how various policy mistakes aggravated the crisis and draw some conclusions that may be useful for other emerging market economies.     

Fertility differentials between Korean and international marriage couples in South Korea

Amid high hopes that the rise of international marriage will boost fertility rates in South Korea, this article assesses fertility differentials between Korean and international marriage couples. Espousing the theoretical position that fertility decisions need to be viewed from a couple perspective, we seek to build a new framework that goes beyond the traditional immigrant fertility literature. To test the formulated hypotheses, we compared fertility hazards among four couple types using the 2012 National Survey on Multicultural Families and the 2012 National Fertility Survey: couples consisting of a Korean wife and a Korean husband (Korean couples), couples consisting of a foreign wife and a Korean husband (foreign-wife couples), couples consisting of a Korean wife and a foreign husband (foreign-husband couples), and couples consisting of a foreign wife and a foreign husband (foreign couples). The results from Cox regression models revealed that the wives of Korean couples experienced the highest fertility hazards for the first birth, followed by the wives of foreign-wife couples. Furthermore, wives of Korean couples took the shortest time to give birth to the second child, followed by wives of foreign-husband and then foreign-wife couples. We discussed theoretical bearings of these findings and outlined a promising line of further research.     

Revisiting the South Korean developmental state after the 1997 financial crisis

This study reassesses the conventional wisdom surrounding the developmental state of South Korea (hereafter Korea) since the 1997 Korean financial crisis. The conventional wisdom is that, as a result of the continued structural reforms prompted by the crisis, the Korean developmental state, inherently characterised by active or direct state intervention, strong economic and industrial policies, the chaebol-oriented economic policy, and labour exclusion, has finally begun to dissolve in earnest. In this study, we have considered whether that is really the case and also which theoretical implications can be drawn from this consideration. Analysis of the Korean developmental state following the 1997 crisis has indicated that, quite contrary to conventional wisdom, the developmental state has continued to prevail as a core policy framework of the Korean administrations even after the crisis. There is no doubt that the continued structural and market reform after the crisis certainly undermined the Korean developmental state to a certain degree, but that does not mean the beginning of the end of the Korean developmental state at all. For much evidence strongly indicates that the Korean developmental state still remains intact and strong despite the structural reforms, on account of the successive Korean governments’ assiduous and deliberate efforts to maintain and reinforce it. Even after the crisis, the Kim Dae-Jung and post-Kim regimes have hardly abandoned many of their market interventionist policies. Such market interventionist policies, which were routinely practised under the military regime in the 1960s and 1970s, diametrically contravene the argument that the Korean developmental state has begun to dissolve as a result of structural reform after the 1997 crisis. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Korean developmental state persists as usual. All this information, then, suggests that path dependence is in action in the case of the Korean developmental state, and this suggests a further hypothesis that the Korean developmental state is very likely to persist in the future as well, despite increasing globalisation pressure, given the strong path dependence.     

The second North Korean nuclear crisis

In 2002 the inclusion of North Korea by the Bush administration within the 'axis of evil' portended a break from the Clinton policy of engagement. Despite the apparent inconsistencies of this categorisation, North Korea's undoubted possession of some weapons of mass destruction capability seemed to make it a possible target for US containment if not preemption. However, Pyongyang's chief motive in such weapons development might actually be to guarantee regime survival. The revelation that North Korea had been developing a covert uranium enrichment program led US policymakers in the Bush administration to contemplate a policy of quarantine and containment. The wider policy community is divided on the question of whether Pyongyang was seeking a new bargain with the US, or whether this program was intended to produce a deterrent from possible US attack. These alternatives prescribe, respectively, a new negotiating approach or a strategy designed to dissuade. But the actual policy choice hinges on the outcome in Iraq.     

Restructuring the US-South Korea alliance to deal with the second Korean nuclear crisis

As the US-South Korea alliance faces the second Korean nuclear crisis, Seoul and Washington no longer share a common unifying threat perception of North Korea. This divide has allowed North Korea to advance its interests by playing a 'South Korea card' against the United States in the nuclear standoff. The divide is not a transient problem that can be ignored or addressed with ad hoc fixes but a secular phenomenon rooted in South Korea's growing wealth and deepening democracy. What is needed now is more distance in the alliance. The alliance must be restructured to reflect the reality that South Korea can defend itself against North Korea without the help of the United States. For both Seoul and Washington, the restructured alliance would produce a more complete and robust set of options to advance their respective North Korea policies.     

青海应对后金融危机的难点及对策措施

面对国际金融危机带来的严峻挑战,青海省委省政府及时制定实施了一系列应对措施,并取得了积极成效。但是,由于国际经济形势仍不稳定、出口环境仍然偏紧等因素的影响,青海应对后国际金融危机仍然面临着诸多困难。为此,本文结合当前国内外宏观经济环境,从加大正面宣传力度、压缩政府公务支出、转变经济发展方式、加强国内外经济技术合作、强化公共财政职能等方面提出了对策措施。     

Anthropology in the financial crisis

This editorial considers the opportunities opened up for anthropologists by the financial crisis of 2008. The chief of these is the exposure of cracks in the intellectual hegemony of free-market economics which contributed to an unnecessarily defensive posture on the part of most anthropologists during the period of neoliberal globalization. The authors claim that anthropology can bridge the gap between everyday life and the world at large by combining the study of ideas and social actions. We draw on Ortiz's research among financial professionals to show how working practices informed by economic liberalism can have extremely unequal consequences for the global distribution of resources. The perspectives of Mauss and Polanyi on political economy can help us to make sense of the current situation and to recommend a path forward beyond market fundamentalism. Their general ideas lend power to the concrete findings of field research. The mask of neoliberal ideology has been ripped from the politics of world economy. Anthropology's highest mission is to start from where people are and go with them wherever they take you. What better time to follow this imperative than when the model the world has been compelled to live by for three decades is in such disarray?     

The Italian welfare state after the financial crisis

The essential characteristics of the Italian welfare state as it developed after the Second World War generated social cleavages and inequities that affected the Italian economy and provided grist for future reforms. At the same time, the welfare state provided political actors with incentives and resources that constrained attempts at reform. With the financial crisis beginning in 2008, serious reform was no longer optional. But austerity politics have generated pressures for changes to the welfare state which are unlikely to moderate most of the underlying inequities generated by the post-war system. Going forward, Italian policymakers must chart a path that is informed by efforts to overcome the pathologies of the past without further undermining the social and economic health of the country.     

The far side of international business: local initiatives in the global workshop

This article presents a case study of the entry of two Norwegianlifeboat companies into the Chinese production system. Ratherthan merely studying the situation through the eyes of thesecompanies, it includes a perspective from the far side of internationalbusiness, i.e., the local competitors. The article argues thatto understand the dynamics and development of both internationalcompanies and localized production systems in a global economy,it is necessary to explore how international and local actorsreflexively evaluate and act upon each other. The article, thus,presents a model for studying the internationalization processand localized production systems.     

Multinational enterprises,international relations and international business: reconstituting intellectual boundaries for the new millennium

The rapidly changing nature of the international political economy along with its increasing complexity, poses challenges for both theoreticians as well as policymakers; the former in terms of developing innovative frameworks of analysis able to model and understand the constitutive nature and contours of its parameters; the latter in terms of developing suitable frameworks of analysis able to inform policy analysis and practical management strategies. This article explores these dilemmas from two disciplinary perspectives. First, from international relations (IR) theory, particularly how various theoretical approaches have failed to consider more fully the role of non-state actors like multinational enterprises (MNEs) despite the growth in their importance and the resources they control. Second, from the perspective of international business (IB) which, while focusing on MNEs, has done so in the absence of more contextual approaches that situate MNEs in power-political, regulatory, and inter-state environmental settings. By highlighting the weaknesses of both disciplinary approaches, the article then suggests that the construction of new interdisciplinary rubrics jointly created from IR and IB, offers a better means of appreciating the changing character of the global political economy and some of its most important actors and emerging processes.     

金融危机出境游:越游越省钱

面对国际性的金融危机,人们的日常花销在不断减少。很多国家往往以本国货币贬值来刺激消费。相对而言,外币的购买力比以前增强了,货币贬值国家的商品、劳务、交通、住宿等费用就会便宜很多。这是一个简单的经济常识。而那些喜爱旅游的朋友则会抓住这个机会,去那些曾经昂贵的旅行目的地玩玩看看,冰岛、加拿大、英国、澳大利亚、韩国等国的货币贬值厉害,现在正是"抄底游"的好时机。可以去某一个国家玩,也可以找旅行社来个几国游,汇率变了,怎么玩怎么合算。     

Economic crisis in Korea and the degraded developmental state

This article analyses the Korean developmental state since the late 1990s, and argues that the state has continued to play a weighty role in the economy. The state guided industrial and financial restructuring after the Asian economic crisis, and intervened to stimulate the economy during the 2008 global financial crisis. In doing so, state elites have displayed a distinctive form of economic leadership that is largely consistent with the developmental state. Rather than focusing predominantly on performance-related indicators of state strength such as growth rates, this article analyses the deeper aspects of the developmental state, specifically its internal functions and its collaboration with business. The article brings politics back into analysis of the developmental state by questioning the assumption that strong economic performance is necessary for the maintenance of close ties between the state and chaebol. Instead, economic performance is better understood as a predictor of patterns of conflict and cooperation. Long-standing ties between the state and big business have endured two significant economic crises, even if the performance of the developmental state has been degraded compared to earlier decades.     

Documenting the indignation: Responses to the 2008 financial crisis in contemporary Spanish cinema

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to analyze two Spanish documentary films that reflect on the 2008 financial crisis in Spain, Mercado de futuros (Mercedes Álvarez, 2011) and No estamos solos (Pere Joan Ventura, 2015). These movies could be marked as political for their choice of a collective protagonist and for dealing with the issues of inequality with the purpose of appealing to mobilization and resistance to the neoliberal Western agenda that have provoked social cutbacks after the 2008 crisis. Mercedes Álvarez and Pere Joan Ventura follow the tradition of political documentaries traced by filmmakers such as Dziga Vertov, Joris Ivens, Pere Portabella, and Basilio Martín Patino and open the debate on how people can contribute to searching for renewal policies in times of crisis.     

论归国前后的大韩民国临时政府及驻华机构

抗日战争胜利后,面对错综复杂的国际局势,大韩民国临时政府适时制定应对措施,争取中国官方的政治、外交、经济援助,顺利实现归国目标;同时组建驻华代表团,继续在中国进行护侨、宣传韩国独立统一及推动中韩友好的活动。     

Averting a global financial crisis: the US,the IMF,and the Mexican debt crisis of 1976

This article explains the politics and diplomacy of the initial use of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjustment program as a tactic in a strategy to avert a possible global banking crisis. Scholars typically date the strategy to the Reagan administration's response to the sovereign debt crises in Eastern Europe and Latin America in the early 1980s. This article demonstrates that the approach originated instead during the 1976 Mexican debt crisis – the first potential postwar default by a developing country that threatened international bank failures. Key US and Mexican officials recognized that an IMF program of currency devaluation and austerity would probably fail in its stated objective of reducing Mexico's balance of payments deficit. Nevertheless, US Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, fearing that a Mexican default might lead to bank failures and subsequent global financial crisis, intervened to an unprecedented degree in the negotiations between the IMF and Mexico. The United States offered direct financial support and worked through diplomatic channels to insist that Mexico accept an IMF adjustment program, as a way of bailing out US banks. Mexican president Luis Echeverría's administration consented to IMF adjustment because officials perceived it as the least politically costly option among a range of alternatives.