Japan and South Korea Economic Developments

Japan and South Korea Economic Developments Japan and South Korea within several decades made their way from being destroyed by the war and poverty-ridden to industrialized, highly developed and quite rich countries. At first glance, it seems that stories of Japanese and Korean miraculous transformation are rather similar to each other. Both counties faced similar problems and challenges in the beginning of their growth path. Moreover, both Japan and South Korea received strong growth incentives from abroad. Thus, foundations of Japan’s growth were laid during the American Occupation period, whereas South Korea after the Second World War was also occupied by the American forces and received huge financial support from the United States. But were their ways of economic development actually alike and to what extent? So, let us look closer and try to answer this question. Many scholars agree that Japan’s and South Korea’s outstanding economic performance was a result of strong government policies and efficient reforms. The countries’ approaches to economic development appear to be similar in several aspects. One of the most obvious common features is interventionist policies. In Japan, the MITI shaped industrial policies, while also consulting with private actors and guiding them to the â€Å"right† direction. South Korean government also applied direct intervention in economic system by controlling prices and taking part in decision-making process of private actors. Government guidance and supervision over economic processes significantly contributed to the Japan’s and Korea’s outstanding economic performance. Comparing the main government economic development policies, several parallels can be drawn here. In both cases, high and rapid economic growth was achieved through intensive industrialization and export promotion. Japanese and Korean government counted primarily on development of heavy and chemical industry sectors as the main driving force of development. The key industries were provided assistance and various benefits, including loans, subsidies, and tax privileges, etc. At the same time, investment was strongly promoted. The success of industrialization and export-promotion policies owes to several specific policy instruments and approaches, which were effectively used both by Japanese and Korean governments. Among the most important are mobilization and allocation of capital, adoption of foreign technologies, cooperation with business conglomerates, and restriction of imports. The success of industrialization and export-promotion policies was closely linked to the efficient mobilization and allocation of capital by managing savings and investments. The Japanese and South Korean governments were particularly effective in promoting domestic saving of financial institutions, enterprises, and households by means of monetary policy instruments. Likewise, they also succeeded in channeling these funds as capital investments to industrial production (and also services sector later). The factors of production were moved from low-productivity sectors to more productive ones (Pilat 1993). While conducting industrialization and promoting export, Japanese and Korean governments paid special attention to importing foreign technologies. Investments and loans were provided ‘selectively to those firms capable of adapting and improving imported technology’ (Odagiri Goto 1993). Successful adoption of foreign technologies became a basis for modernization of Japanese and Korean industry and increased competitiveness of their goods on the international market. Within the framework of industrialization and export encouragement policies, Japanese and Korean governments maintained close relations with big business. Similarly, due to historical and cultural tradition, Japanese as well as Korean business is dominated by the large conglomerates. This tendency has become apparent in Japan since the 19th century. Although zaibatsu were dissolved by the Occupation government in the late 1940s, business conglomerates reemerged later as keiretsu. The Korean analogue known as chaebols appeared the second half of the 20th century. The rise of keiretsu and chaebols was both a consequence of state policies of industrialization and export-promotion as well as its main force. Industry and big business benefited from this policy receiving strong support from the government, which led to the growth of business conglomerates. Rise of conglomerates, in its turn, resulted into increase of industrial production and growing competitiveness of Japanese products on the international market. Thus, cooperation between government and big business conglomerates reinforced industrialization and stimulated exports, which, undoubtedly, played a significant role in economic growth in Japan and South Korea (Ohno 2006; Shin 2003). Another common feature of Japanese and Korean governments’ approaches to export promotion is trade policies, which played a significant role in economic progress in both cases. At the initial stage, governments were promoting protectionist policies. Various import restrictions, such as tariffs, quotas, and other, were imposed in order to protect domestic producers from international competition. While import was restricted, export was intensively stimulated. The combination of these policies proved to be very effective in stimulating economic growth. Foreign capital as an instrument of industrialization and of increasing exports was used both by Japan and Korea. However, the role assigned to foreign funds and their contribution appeared to be considerably different in each case. Thus, in Japan foreign direct investment was restricted from considerations of being unhealthy for Japanese economy. Foreign borrowing was practiced by Japanese government, but in moderate size. Japan mostly relied on domestic capital for financing investment, while foreign loans constituted less than 1% of the total amount. Meanwhile, in South Korean case, domestic capital could not cover the need for investment, so, to a greater extent, it was financed from foreign loans (which, interestingly, were borrowed mostly from Japan). Foreign direct investment was also strongly promoted by Korean government and supported by special legislation. Moreover, in contrast to Japanese approach, one of the main sources of financing investment in Korea was direct state investments and various state loan programs, which also constituted a considerable share in total investment (Shin 2003). Thus, both Japanese and Korean governments focused on export-promotion as a main driving force of economic development. Apparently, in both cases this policy was implemented in a quite similar way. However, there was one important difference. While promoting export, Japanese government also paid attention to domestic market and stimulated domestic consumption. In that way, newly produced consumer electronics such as TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and cars went to domestic market in the first place, and only then for export. Thus, domestic consumption became one the main drivers of growth together with export. On the other hand, Korean approach was based on export-first principle. According to this policy, ‘Korean firms were marketing their products in overseas markets rather than in domestic markets’, while many of consumer goods were inaccessible for Koreans and sometimes even prohibited to sale. For instance, color TVs were admitted to domestic market only in 19 80 (Harvie Lee 2003). The government economic development policies in Japan and South Korea were framed into economic plans. Economic planning became an important instrument in supervising economic processes and implementing policies of industrialization and export-promotion. Being used reasonably, planning played a significant role in achieving economic growth. The plans did not take a form of strict programs like in central planning economies, but served as indicators for the further development and informed the public about the government expectations for the future. Economic growth in Japan was accompanied by the several economic plans. The plans usually included the medium-run scenario of development, stated the goals and priorities of the policy, and, finally, indicated the possible line of action for the private sector. The first one – the Economic Self-Reliance Five-Year Plan was adopted in 1955. It was followed by the Doubling National Income Plan in 1960, which became the most efficient one. Aiming at doubling national income, the plan was put into practice even more successfully than it was expected. The 1970s were also marked by several economic plans; each of them was designed accordingly to the situation to address current problems. The Economic and Social Development Plan of 1967-1971 and the New Economic and Social Development Plan of 1970-1975 were focused on the problems that appeared as a consequence of the rapid economic progress and emphasized balancing economic development. Further, the Economic and Social Basic Plan, wh ich was dealing with the development of Japan internationally and welfare of society, was in force between 1973 and 1977. The first oil crisis brought changes to the Japan’s government economic policies, so the Economic Plan for the Second Half of the 1970’s introduced for the period of 1976-1980 promoted initiatives for energy-saving (Otsubo 2007). Likewise, in South Korea, economic planning was an essential element of government developmental policies. Economic plans were developed by the special agency, The Economic Planning Board, established in 1961. Altogether, seven five-year economic development plans were implemented during the economic miracle period of 1960s-1990s. Plans were establishing targets of various macroeconomic indicators, such as rate of growth, rates of investment and saving as a share of GNP, as well as exports and imports targets. The general direction of development and goals to achieve were indicated in the plans. Plans also included the development strategies. Generally, Korean economic development plans paid special attention to industrialization and exports as the main factors of economic growth. At the initial stage, emphasis was put on promotion of light industries development and import substitution, whereas later, focus shifted to heavy and chemical sector, and also exports expansion. In the las t three plans the course was taken on gradual easing of government control and liberalization of trade (The Federation of Korean Industries 1987). Although the government policies and reforms clearly made the greatest contribution to the Japan’s and South Korea’s economic growth, it is worth to mention one more important factor, without which economic miracle would not, probably, happen at all. This refers to the cultural peculiarities of the Japanese and Koreans. Japan and South Korea are both East Asian countries with strong collectivist culture influenced by Confucianism. Being the two basic cultural features, Confucian tradition and collectivism create a unique and favorable environment for economic development. Confucianism as an official ideology was dominating in East Asian countries from the end of the 13th century. By the end of the 19th century its influence became weak and limited, and today Confucianism does not exist in its original understanding as the social and political system. Nevertheless, Confucian ethics and values still remain relevant in the modern East Asian societies. The value system alon g with the social structure in Japan and Korea are strongly influenced by the Confucian tradition, which is quite evident in everyday life. Primarily, the Confucian teaching stressed the humaneness and the harmonious relations between the people. In practice, this principle means the respect to the authorities, to parents, to elder people, placing collective interests prior to the personal, and taking care of other members of the group. The dominance of the Confucian system of values contributed to the formation of the strong collectivist culture in East Asian countries, in contrast to the Western European individualism. The importance of nation, society, community and family over the individual has become the main feature of East Asian cultures, Japanese and Korean particularly. Obviously, such attitude of Koreans and Japanese to the collective interests and their strong feeling of responsibility before the community are among the main factors that contributed to the prosperity of these nations. Generally, owing to these national traits, East Asia has become the most dynamically developing region, growing stronger and gaining more influence on the international arena over the last decades (Hang 2011). To conclude, Japan and Korea came to the economic miracle in quite a similar way. Despite the deep economic crises and social and political instability brought by the wars, Japan and South Korea successfully transformed into economically advanced countries within several decades, which are quite rare cases in world history. Although sometimes different in details, Japanese and Korean approaches, generally, coincide in many aspects. Economic development in both cases was led by intensive industrialization and export-promotion implemented through the system of administrative guidance and economic planning. Consequently, it appears that this particular combination of instruments against a background of East Asian cultural tradition led to such outstanding results and created economic miracle in Japan and South Korea. Conclusion In the second half of 20th century, Japan and South Korea presented to the world two notable cases of remarkable economic transformation known as economic miracle. Many scholars agree that much of a credit for their success belongs to the government policies. This thesis has been a study of the mechanism of Japanese and Korean economic miracles in the context of government policies in historical perspective. The first goal of this research was to find out what were the fundamental policies that contributed to their economic miracles. And secondly, it aimed to determine if Japanese and Korean approaches were similar. It was supposed that economic development strategies of Japanese and Korean government were partly similar, while based primarily on policies of industrialization and export-promotion. At the beginning of their path, Japan and South Korea were heavily affected by the war and, as a consequence, plunged into the deep social and economic crises. To recover their economies, countries’ governments undertook quite similar approaches. Primarily, their development patterns were characterized by government intervention into the market processes through administrative guidance and with the help of economic plans. While not going to extremes, Japanese and Korean approach allowed avoiding both deregulation of the free-market system and over-regulation of central planning. The policy of reasonable, balanced and appropriate intervention into economy proved to be very effective in Japanese and Korean cases (Liu 2012). Economic development policies emphasized intensive industrialization and promotion of export as the basis of economic growth. The industrialization and exports were stimulated by means of effective mobilization and allocation of domestic and foreign capital, import of foreign technologies, maintaining strong relations with business conglomerates, and also restriction of imports. Noteworthy, the success of this particular development strategy in both Japan and South Korea was not accidental, but owes to the East Asian cultural background based on Confucian and collectivist tradition. Similarly to Japanese and Korean experience, other East Asian countries, including Singapore and Taiwan, also managed to achieve high economic growth within quite a short period of time through this scheme. The examples of Japan, South Korea, and other countries of East Asian region that reached high growth allow assuming that this approach forms the basis of so-called East Asian model of economic growth. To conclude, during the last 25 years Japanese economy recorded average growth rate of around 1.3% annually. Certainly, this figure can not be compared with the high growth of the 1960s. However, against a background of the world trend towards economic decline, this rate does not look that bad and is in line with growth rates of other developed countries. In spite of slow growth, Japan still remains one of the largest economies in the world. Moreover, official statistics showing economic decline do not reflect actual Japan’s reality. Japan is a highly developed and rich country with one of the highest standard of living. On the other hand, South Korea is one of the most rapidly developing countries being the 15th largest economy in the world. Korea is known as one of the Asian Tigers together with Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Over the last several years, its economy has been growing at a stable rate of around 3% per annum. Korea and Japan together are among the world lead ers of technological innovation (Blaauw 2014; Dadush 2014). Much of the present economic attainments of Japan and South Korea can be traced to their economic miracles of the second half of 20th century. Despite some recent and current difficulties, Japan’s and Korea’s history demonstrates their great potential, so it is to be believed that even better achievements are yet to come.

Gambling Addiction’s Effect on Family Essay

Gambling is a distraction for most people, something to look forward to on a vacation or the occasional trip to the racetrack. However, there are others who can’t control their interest in gambling. Instead of doing it on an occasional basis, it becomes an everyday activity and a cruel addiction. Individuals who become addicted to gambling often get overwhelmed by the activity and allow it to become the dominant thing in their lives at the expense of themselves and their family. Addiction Addicted gamblers get into trouble when they start chasing their losses. A gambler may go to the casino or go online to gamble with a fixed amount of money. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the increased access to gambling throughout the United States the problem of pathlological gambling is likely to increase in the future. Sponsored Links Pedialyte ® For Children When it Comes to Rehydration, Other Household Beverages Can’t Compare. www.Pedialyte.com Function The gambler doesn’t want to lose, but when those losses occur, he doesn’t want others to know about it. He wants to hide his losses because he doesn’t want to disappoint others and he doesn’t want to face the consequences of what is happening. So when an addicted gambler is losing, he is hurting his family by losing money that cannot afford to be lost and he is hurting is family even more by lying to them. According to a report by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, there are 2.5 million pathological gamblers in the United States and another 3 million problem gamblers. Impact In many cases, the addicted gambler’s family doesn’t find out about the problem until many months or years have gone by. The gambler may manipulate the family’s money for a while to make it look like all the funds are in tact. However, after a given period, that won’t be possible because the money will be gone. The gambler’s spouse or significant other may discover the shortfall in a routine examination of the accounts or the gambler may admit the problem when the guilt becomes overwhelming. Either way, trust has been destroyed in the relationship. Treatment Preventing a gambler from gambling is difficult, but if family members know about the problem and really want to help, they can practice tough love in order to prevent the gambler from doing more damage to himself and to the family. A support group like Gamblers Anonymous can also help. GA, modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, uses 12 steps to increase self-awareness and identify character defects that can help the individual arrest his gambling problem. However, the compulsive gambler cannot be â€Å"cured.† Identification The American Academy of Family Physicians has identified some of the behaviors associated with pathological gambling, which can help family members identify if a family member has a gambling problem. These behaviors include preoccupation with gambling; repeated failed efforts to control gambling; gambles to escape problems; lies to family members, therapists and others to conceal gambling losses and relies on others to provide money to relieve desperate financial situations.

Women S Roles In World War One

These women worked primarily with gunshot wounds and gas victims. The Fad's would have to keep wounds clean, distribute painkillers, and inject these painkillers into men's wounds. The Fanny however had a much more undesirable job. Fanny's would have to clean and disinfect rooms that housed wounded soldiers. â€Å"Some of these volunteers even recalled having to get rid of bodies from the hospital. † (www. Sachem. Du/Erlenmeyer) Not only did these women have to clean the soldier's wounds, but on occasion had to clean the soldiers themselves. Although volunteering as a FANNY seemed unlikable, the women were happy to help aid the grateful soldiers.Other jobs that women did included land work. One group of women were The Women's Land Army. The Women's Land Army worked to bring in the harvest and maintain the farms. Anything that could be done by hand by the WALLA was done by hand in order to save fuel. Since the need for WALLA workers was so high, recruiting officers never thorou ghly checked women's ages. Girls at the age of only 14 were accepted after lying that they were 18. Although the job was tough, â€Å"women were only paid 18 shillings a week. 12 of these shillings would be devoted to food and board, leaving only 6 shillings for women to spend for themselves.Considering a pair of pantyhose cost 3 shillings, they did not have much. † (www. Sachem. Du/Erlenmeyer) Not only did women take over jobs to help the war effort, but they also went out and â€Å"contained† for the U. S. Soldiers. â€Å"They would provide entertainment, hand out food, cigarettes, and sweets, and sewed buttons back on uniforms. † (WV. Www. Warranted. Com/ hoosegow) Women would sing and dance for the soldiers to keep their spirits up. But not only did they sing and dance, but also gave lectures and read poetry. The soldiers would look forward to seeing the women perform for them.It would give them hope even when things were going wrong. A soldier described Sar ah Wailer's performance saying â€Å"I shall never forget as long as I live the blessed white dress she had on the night she recited to us. We had not seen a white dress in years. There we were all ready to go into the line, and there she was talking to us like a girl from home. It sure was a great sight, you bet. † (War And Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa) In order to raise awareness for the war and show their support, women began campaigns to help the war effort. One campaign in particular was the White Feather Campaign.In this campaign, women would go around and hand out a white feather to any healthy looking man, trying to shame him for being a coward. At that time a white feather was a symbol Of unfulfilled civic duty and receiving a white feather showed the women's disappointment in that man for not going to serve his country. The point of this campaign was to shame men into going to fight. Although in many cases it proved successful, women soon stopped the White Feather Campaign because people spoke out against it. After World War One women were looked at differently. Men realized that they could actually work and take responsibility.

The Revolution Of The American Revolution - 863 Words

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