Digitalization in South Korea: A Path to a Better Shared Prosperity?
Digitalization offers huge opportunities to raise Korea's productivity and to tackle inequality. But optimizing its benefits requires appropriate policies.
Digitalization could open a new era of growth for Korea. Previous expansion waves, based on traditional industries, have fostered export-led growth and placed Korea among the world’s top ten economies. However, divides between industry and services, large and small firms, and regular and non-regular workers have widened. The economy was losing steam even before the COVID-19 crisis, as the working-age population started to decline, and productivity growth slowed. Digitalization offers huge opportunities to raise productivity economy-wide and to tackle inequality, but optimizing it for all requires appropriate policies, notably to enhance skills, adapt regulations, and create networks for technology diffusion and innovation.