Does Meaning Well
Bring Good Results?
Editor's Note : Following is the first of a three-part series on article written by ex-President Jwa Sung-hee of the Korea Economic Research Institute entitled, "Does Meaning Well Bring Good Results?"

The Korean economy is one of a few economies in the world that was able to get away from poverty in the 20th century. Its take-off is the only successful case of a state-like scale of the economy in view of the size of its population. Off course, the Korean economy had its share of twists and turns to be where it is today. Korea was rather like an economic reform test lab under a father-like strong government.
But there are many worried voices for the Korean economy. Especially, of the four Asian dragons, Singapore and Hong Kong succeeded in attaining $20,000 in per capita income, while Korea is never able to move past $10,000. Even Taiwan is moving ahead of us and China's economy has been growing fast, turning China into a world factory generating fears that Korea's economy might collapse under a huge sucking power of the Chinese economy, not able to catch up with the level of Japanese technology.
The government had to come up with 10 largest next generation growth engine industries to be fostered aware that the new industries have not been going any where. I think it's the loss of challenging entrepreneurial spirit taking risks due to worsened business environment caused by tough regulations and labor-management relations. But the government's policies for businesses, especially for the regulation for large business firms to prevent the economic concentration have not been changed. It seems likely that the challenging entrepreneurial spirit will stay lost for the time being with the government taking on the backwardness of corporate governance at the core of economic problems and attempting to correct it with regulatory measures.
Where is the Korean economy headed and which direction? What are the results of economic reform since the mid-1980s and have reform objectives been achieved in the past 15 years? Unfortunately, various economic indicators in the past 15 years,show that we are far from becoming an advanced country as those reform efforts intended. Furthermore, potential growth capability, productivity and corporate profit ratio and others that indicate our economy's strength have been skidding continuously. The Korean economy has been adrift and in order to stop its further drift, we ought to look back its voyage course and examine its current position at this juncture.
I would like to draw the attention of policymakers and academics on the following 10 mysteries of the Korean economy.
Mystery 1. The paradigm for development for 1960s and 1970s, which brought the miracle of the Han River, have become the subject of reform and clearance.
Mystery 2. Economic democracy and balanced growth policies designed to make Korea an advanced economy rather took away its dynamism.
Mystery 3. Labor-management relations has not improved, despite the call for equitable labor-management and harmony under management democracy policies.
Mystery 4. Under balanced regional development policies, the Republic of Korea has become Seoul(capital area) Republic.
Mystery 5. Universities across the country achieved balanced growth with one university in every county amid policies to foster engineering and provincial universities for balanced regional development, but the universities' specialization and competitiveness were lost with competitiveness of engineering universities rather growing weak.
Mystery 6. Farm became more barren amid urban and farm balanced development policies.
Mystery 7. The concentration of the economy grew worse under policies to prevent it to correct imbalance in the distribution of natural resources and for balanced growth.
Mystery 8. Policies to protect small and medium businesses and foster their growth amid policies to regulate large businesses rather weakened competitive strength of small and medium businesses.
Mystery 9. Under balance and distribution-oriented policies, income distribution grew worse.
Mystery 10. More students from primary, middle and high schools went abroad to study under policies intended for equalization of education for equitable education opportunities. nw