South Korea s IMF Crisis

After prolonged rapid growth, often characterized as the Miracle on the Han, South Korea joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), sometimes described as a club for middleincome countries, in December 1996. One year later, sharply changing fortunes forced the ROK Government to seek an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout, in December 1997. Twenty years after onset of the IMF Crisis, this lecture will summarize precipitating events, crisis effects, and responses by the Government of Korea and the IMF as well as the World Bank. The lecture will go beyond standard explanations to suggest a perhapssurprising origin for the crisis. At its conclusion, the lecture will offer an assessment of longterm effects from South Koreas IMF crisis. William P. Mako retired from the World Bank in 2014. During 1998 2002, he advised Koreas Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on chaebol restructuring; negotiated corporate restructuring conditions for a 2 billion World Bank