Abstract South Korea is one of the most successful economic development cases in history. This country, stricken with crushing poverty and torn by a disastrous war two generations ago, rose from the ashes of the war and underwent unprecedented economic development for over three decades. By the mid-1990s, South Korea had built an advanced economy with world-class industries and also achieved a liberal democracy based on the rule of law. Since its 1997 financial crisis, however, Korea’s economic growth has been continually slowing down with widening income gaps among its populations. The Korean economy has also faced increasing external pressure, which has recently been dramatized by Japan’s export restraint measures on some of the key materials used to produce semiconductors, one of the most important export products for the Korean economy. This note discusses structural issues in the Korean economy, such as its over-dependency on a small number of conglomerates (“chaebols”) and the weakness of its SMEs, which cause the Korean economy to slow down and render the economy vulnerable to external pressure. This note examines these issues from a legal and institutional perspective and offers proposals to remedy some of the problems in the Korean economy.

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处于十字路口的韩国经济：外部压力下的结构性问题–法律与发展视角的随笔

摘要韩国是历史上最成功的经济发展案例之一。这个国家饱受贫困之苦，两代人前遭一场灾难性的战争摧残，从战争的灰烬中崛起，经历了三十多年前所未有的经济发展。到1990年代中期，韩国已经建立了具有世界一流工业的先进经济，并且还实现了基于法治的自由民主。但是，自1997年金融危机以来，韩国的经济增长一直在放缓，其人口之间的收入差距不断扩大。韩国经济也面临着日益增加的外部压力，最近日本对某些生产半导体的关键材料采取了出口限制措施，这是韩国经济最重要的出口产品之一。本文讨论了韩国经济中的结构性问题，例如对少数企业集团的过度依赖（chaebols）以及中小企业的弱势，这导致韩国经济增长放缓，并使经济容易受到外部压力的影响。本文从法律和制度的角度研究了这些问题，并提出了解决韩国经济中某些问题的建议。