Interview with the Korean Economist, Cho Seong Pyo 1.

What do you think the turning points are in the history of the Korean economy? I believe there are two major turning points in modern Korea's economy. The first one occurred at the beginning of the 1900s and the next one in the 1960s. In early 1900s, a lot of missionaries came to Korea and built schools, hospitals, and orphanages which led to improvement of people's health and education. This naturally led to the development of the economy. Also, in 1960s, the former president of Korea, Chung hee Park, carried out a series of three Five-year Plans, which is a very significant turning point. 2. Park contributed a lot of things to the development of the economy. In what area do you think he did the best job? Like I said before, Park carried out three terms of Five-year Plan successfully. I think he did a very good job in planning all the policies. More importantly, he changed the attitude of people, who had lost hope after the Korean War. He was the one who planted a "We can eat well and live well if we try" spirit in people's mind. One significant example of this is the Sae maul movement. When I was little, I used to live in a rural area. In my town, there was a river with steppingstones and it had been there for hundreds of years. However, as adults from my town got involved in Sae maul movement, they built concrete bridge for people crossing the river. The lives of all the people in my town completely changed. Cars and trucks with various products from other developed cities could easily cross the river, and those from my town could easily go to other cities, too. This movement provided people not only prosperity but also confidence that they could live well.

3. How can the model of Korean economy influence the third-world countries' economic development? Similar to how we often amaze at countries that are more developed than us like U.S. or Japan, there are a lot of third world countries who often are amazed at our rapid economic growth. Instead of going to U.S., Germany or Japan, they often want to learn things from South Korea. The reason is those countries do not have any similarities with them. While most of the developed countries had capital, natural resources, and overall power or authority in the world, South Korea had literally none of those about 60 years ago. They become hopeful as they see how South Koreans have accomplished so many things extremely rapidly out of nothing. South Korea is a significant global actor for these reasons. 4. Last winter, Keun hea Park, daughter of Chung hee Park, won the 2012 South Korean presidential election. How can her family relation with Chung hee Park influence Korea's future? This last presidential election had a very odd phenomenon; about 90% of Korean citizens who were in their 50s voted. Also, 60% of those people who voted for President Parkwere from Sae nuri party. Supporters of other parties who are younger than 50 criticized President Park for being the daughter of a dictator, who served as the president of South Korea for four terms until his assassination. As a response to this criticism, a lot of people in their 50s claimed that denouncing Chung hee Park is denouncing them. Therefore, 90% of 50s voted and more than 60% supported Park. The victory of Keun hea Park in the last election has a significant meaning. I believe she will heal those people who got hurt from her father's dictatorship and unify the Korean nation as one. Unlike the past when Chung hee Park got involved in the country's economic market very actively, she will not intervene that much. However, her goal is to change

our conglomerate-centered society to a small/medium-sized firm-centered society and help those firms to expand. Also, she is going to work on raising the employment rate. Seong-pyo Cho Professor of Accounting Kyungpook National University spcho@knu.ac.kr