Compositional Changes of Economic Policymakers and New Economic Discourses in the 1970s and 80s = Compositional Changes of Economic Policymakers and New Economic Discourses in the 1970s and 80s

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As is well known, in the early 1970s the ROK government relentlessly pursued an export-oriented economic policy. In terms of industrial policy, however, the focus shifted from labor-intensive light industries to heavy chemical industries. This conventional interpretation, however, misses an important point. It fails to account for the continuous economic stagnation in the late 1970s - early 1980s and how it changed the economic policy of the ROK government. This paper analyzes new economic policy as proposed in ‘economic stabilization policies’ from the late 1970s to overcome the signs of an ailing economy. South Korean economic policymaking during the 1970s and 1980s can be seen as a process of expanding the market-centered views based on the neoclassicist introduced by the so-called “Sogang School” and the KDI. The discourses espousing the minimization of government roles in the economy, unthinkable during the 1970s, began to gain dominance among economists. Although differences between the “market-centered” group and the “gradual liberalization” group nevertheless remained, new domestic and international developments did not permit the counter-discourses of Pyŏn Hyŏngyun and Pak Hyŏnch’ae to influence policy. Of course, market-centered views could not be institutionalized in their full theoretical implications in the South Korean context, as the South Korean economic system continued to invite government interventions despite the neoclassicist tendencies of the “Sogang school” and the KDI. The “result-oriented” “Park Chung Hee” style of policymaking of the 1970s continued to play an important role, and the two oil shocks and the economic crisis around 1980 prevented complete economic liberalization. However, considering the situation then, it appears likely that neoclassicist economists and bureaucrats, such as Yi S˘ungyun and Kim Chaeik, were appointed to important positions in policymaking, and they appear to have justified their approach in publishing Kyŏngje anjŏng sich’aek charyojip in 1981. However, it was to take a long time before the neoclassical stabilization policies were fully adopted, since they only took root after the financial crisis of 1997. The reason for this delay was an attachment to balanced growth theory, which had held sway over economic policy discourses since the 1950s, and the socio-economic structure established during the Park Chung Hee era, the so called “developmental state.”