Asia

Along with commercial banks, capital markets are an integral part of the financial systems in most capitalist economies, and their relative importance is constantly increasing. Countries around the world are…

Central banks have two responsibilities: (1) stabilize the value of the currency and (2) maintain public confidence in deposit money by limiting systemic risk. The first responsibility is primary, ongoing,…

In the unfolding process of the Korean financial crisis in 1997, an inefficient corporate bankruptcy system played a damaging role in the Korean economy. Before the crisis, in 1996 and…

Although Korea has seen its economic growth rates come down from the stratospheric heights of previous decades, it remains, by any advanced-country yardstick, a successful economic performer. Korea’s real GDP…

Covering news on the Korean peninsula can be a hectic task. With all the rapidly evolving developments in economics, politics, and society, it's often hard for journalists who cover the…

With the Trump-Kim Summit in Singapore still on the calendar at least for the moment, pundits and analysts alike have been predicting the outcomes or sharing their advice for how…

With the exception of Gangnam Style, few mainstream radio stations have ever even thought to play Korean pop music. But in the last year or so, the United States has…

On February 9, years of hard work will culminate in the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. A month later, on March 8, the 2018 Winter…

Upon his election, president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol vowed to turn South Korea into a leading digital economy befitting the era of Digital Earth. In addition to the physical relocation of the presidential office from the Blue House to the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan, the upcoming Yoon administration is looking to transition into a “digital…

The widely publicized shortage of semiconductor chips – a remnant of the pandemic supply chain disruptions – faces new challenges from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Eastern Europe is the largest supplier of industrial, rare gasses that are crucial to semiconductor production in South Korea. Conflict-caused supply disruptions open the door for other nations to fill…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having a serious impact on the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. After a 3.6% drop in 2020, world GDP rebounded with 6.1% growth in 2021 (Table 1), reflecting progress in controlling the coronavirus and exceptionally strong fiscal and monetary measures to offset the impact of the pandemic. In…

There is a long tradition of considering North Korean leaders’ public appearances as a potential source of information on the regime’s priorities (see for example: Haggard, Herman, and Ryu; Pyo and Hur; Kim and Lee).  We now have ten full years of this data for Kim Jong-un through the South Korea Ministry of Unification portal,…