This paper draws out the parallels between Korea and Japan in terms of demographics, potential growth, balance sheets, asset prices and inflation. Korea’s demographic trends seem to track Japan’s with a lag of about 20 years. Low productivity in the service sector and labor market duality are common to both countries and need to be addressed with structural reforms. While Korea’s corporate balance sheets are stronger than Japan’s in the early 1990s, Korea needs to progress with the restructuring of nonviable firms to avoid the adverse consequences of delayed balance-sheet repair that Japan experienced. Given its strong fiscal balance sheet position, Korea can afford using fiscal policy actively to incentivize corporate restructuring and structural reforms and cushion their possible short-term adverse impact. Korea can prevent bubbles in asset prices that were at the origin of Japan’s initial crisis with the continued use of macroprudential policies. Although Korea does not appear to be headed toward deflation, new econometric analysis presented in the paper suggests that aging will exert a downward drag on its inflation going forward.

This paper draws out the parallels between Korea and Japan in terms of demographics, potential growth, balance sheets, asset prices and inflation. Korea’s demographic trends seem to track Japan’s with a lag of about 20 years. Low productivity in the service sector and labor market duality are common to both countries and need to be addressed with structural reforms. While Korea’s corporate balance sheets are stronger than Japan’s in the early 1990s, Korea needs to progress with the restructuring of nonviable firms to avoid the adverse consequences of delayed balance-sheet repair that Japan experienced. Given its strong fiscal balance sheet position, Korea can afford using fiscal policy actively to incentivize corporate restructuring and structural reforms and cushion their possible short-term adverse impact. Korea can prevent bubbles in asset prices that were at the origin of Japan’s initial crisis with the continued use of macroprudential policies. Although Korea does not appear to be headed toward deflation, new econometric analysis presented in the paper suggests that aging will exert a downward drag on its inflation going forward.

This book discusses Japan’s long-term economic recession and provides remedies for that recession that are useful for other Asian economies. The book addresses why Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of its economic bubble in the 1990s. Its empirical analysis challenges the beliefs of some economists, such as Paul Krugman, that the Japanese economy is caught in a liquidity trap. This book argues that Japan’s economic stagnation stems from a vertical “investment–saving” (IS) curve rather than a liquidity trap. The impact of fiscal policy has declined drastically, and the Japanese economy faces structural problems rather than a temporary downturn. These structural problems have many causes: an aging demographic (a problem that is frequently overlooked), an over-reliance by local governments on transfers from the central government, and Basel capital requirements that have made Japanese banks reluctant to lend money to start-up businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. This latter issue has discouraged Japanese innovation and technological progress. All these issues are addressed empirically and theoretically, and several remedies for Japan’s long-lasting recession are provided. This volume will be of interest to researchers and policy makers not only in Japan but also the People’s Republic of China, many countries in the eurozone, and the United States, which may face similar challenges in the future.

This book analyses reforms to retirement policies in Japan and South Korea, especially in the context of rapid population ageing. A defining feature of the labour markets and workplaces in these two nations, and the lives of workers and families, is involuntary retirement at relatively young ages. The book explains past developments and recent reforms of retirement policies both in the two countries, as well as in a cross-national comparative manner. At the core of the book is an examination of the social, economic and political conflicts around retirement, such as between younger and older workers, between employers and governments, and between employers and workers. The policy recommendations offered apply not only to Japan and South Korea, but also to other nations such as China. The volume is of value particularly for those interested in labour markets and workplaces, population ageing and contemporary East Asia, in addition to those studying retirement and pensions. Policymakers, business leaders, worker organizations, researchers and students will benefit from the insights about the past, present and future of retirement.

In an era marked by atrocities perpetrated on a grand scale, the tragedy of the so-called comfort women—mostly Korean women forced into prostitution by the Japanese army—endures as one of the darkest events of World War II. These women have usually been labeled victims of a war crime, a simplistic view that makes it easy to pin blame on the policies of imperial Japan and therefore easier to consign the episode to a war-torn past. In this revelatory study, C. Sarah Soh provocatively disputes this master narrative. Soh reveals that the forces of Japanese colonialism and Korean patriarchy together shaped the fate of Korean comfort women—a double bind made strikingly apparent in the cases of women cast into sexual slavery after fleeing abuse at home. Other victims were press-ganged into prostitution, sometimes with the help of Korean procurers. Drawing on historical research and interviews with survivors, Soh tells the stories of these women from girlhood through their subjugation and beyond to their efforts to overcome the traumas of their past. Finally, Soh examines the array of factors— from South Korean nationalist politics to the aims of the international women’s human rights movement—that have contributed to the incomplete view of the tragedy that still dominates today.

The story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest ...

Globalization, by which is meant the increasing economic interdependence among nations, has been a critical ingredient in enabling enormous improvement in mankind's condition. While progress has not always been smooth, and has not come without dislocation for some, the economic policy challenge has been, and is, to enable the realization of the large potential benefits of globalization while simultaneously reducing the negative side effects and providing safety nets for those whose lives are disrupted in the process.This volume focuses on the successes of globalization, and some of the main economic policy challenges and solutions that arise to enhance the benefits and lower the costs. It covers different aspects of globalization, sovereign debt restructuring, development of the financial sector and financial crises in Asia, Turkey, Brazil, etc. The final part of the book covers multilateral international organizations, namely the World Trade Organization, the IMF and the World Bank./a

This book looks at the impact of OECD country policies on East Asia in trade, investment, agriculture, finance, aid, macroeconomic policies and regional co-operation. Further, it examines the interaction of OECD country policies and their coherence with each other.

This report has a special focus on low-income groups, jobseekers and workers, and policies geared towards closing the considerable gaps these groups are facing around income and employment support in Korea. It concludes that significant additional action will be needed to make income...

An interdisciplinary, peer reviewed publication, Journal of International Students (Print ISSN 2162-3104 & Online ISSN 2166-3750) is a professional journal that publishes narrative, theoretical and empirically-based research articles, student reflections, and book reviews relevant to international students and their cross cultural experiences and understanding. Published quarterly, the Journal encourages the submission of manuscripts from around the world, and from a wide range of academic fields, including comparative education, international education, student affairs, linguistics, psychology, religion, sociology, business, social work, philosophy, and culture studies.For further information http:/ /jistudents.org/