1. IntroductionSixty years ago, South Korea (henceforth Korea) was one of the poorest countriesin the world. Today, Korea is reasonably well-to-do, with a living standard comparableto that of lower-end advanced industrial countries. If ever there was a countrydeserving of the term economic ‘miracle,’ it is indeed Korea.What happened, of course, was rapid economic growth. After having beendevastated by war from 1950 to 1953, the Korean economy then stagnated for abouta decade. However, Korea’s economic growth took off in the mid-1960s. Korea’s percapita GDP grew by about 7.0% from 1963 to 1979, and about 6.5% from 1980up to 1996. Korea was then hit by a crisis in 1997 and growth slowed somewhat,but the growth rate still remains high relative to global standards. The growth ofKorea’s per capita GDP has actually been the fastest in the world over the last sixtyyears, as shown in Table 1. Considering that the growth rate worldwide is much higherin the last sixty years than in earlier periods, as can be inferred from Table 1, Korea’sgrowth spurt is the single largest to date in world economic history.