View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by K-Developedia(KDI School) Repository MIT Japan Program Working Paper 01.04 From National Champions to Global Partnerships: The Korean Auto Industry, Financial Crisis and Globalization John Ravenhill* Professor, Department of Politics University of Edinburgh 31 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh EH8 9JT, UK Email:
[email protected] * Chair of Politics, University of Edinburgh MIT Japan Program Working Paper Series 01.04 Center for International Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room E38-7th Floor Cambridge, MA 02139 Phone: 617-252-1483 Fax: 617-258-7432 Date of Publication: June 4, 2001 © MIT Japan Program Introduction Of the five Asian economies most severely affected by the financial crises of 1997-98, the Republic of Korea has experienced the most fundamental institutional transformation. For some observers, the Korean response to the crises was all the more surprising because its economic record over the previous three decades had been far superior to that of the other crisis economies—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Korea had sustained a higher rate of economic growth (an average of close to 8 percent) for longer (more than three decades) than the Southeast Asian crisis economies.1 Korean corporations had become household names in the West in consumer electronics, automobiles, and domestic appliances. A Korean company, Daewoo, was the only corporation not based in Europe, Japan or the United States that ranked in the mid 1990s in the top 50 of the world’s multinationals.2 Korean companies had logged an impressive number of patents in industrialized economies (see Linsu Kim’s chapter in this volume).