The Characteristics of Korea’s Technology Policy

Korea, once a developing country and now a newly industrialized one, has achieved remarkable economic growth and technological progress since the 1960s. As a result of accumulating technological capability and developing competitive products, Korea is now the world leader in a few high-tech fields such as LCD panels and memory chips.

Consequently, probing into how the Korean government has fostered technological advancement and how it could have done better in terms of its technology policy framework can offer some valuable lessons for both advanced and economies.

I would share some of my analysis on Korea’s Technology Policy in the next few postings: the characteristics of Korea’s technology policy, its trajectory, its efficacy, and so on.

A part of my analysis would be only posted.

The Korean government has seen technological innovation as the engine for economic growth. Hence, it has committed to enhancing innovative technological capabilities. In this context, an array of policies has been designed and implemented to establish infrastructure, facilitate technological innovation at firms, and promote specific high-tech industries.

Korean technology policy has the following characteristics, among others:

-The government had built a technology infrastructure in the early days of industrialization.

-The government used various incentives (e.g., accelerated depreciation allowances) to encourage private enterprises to expand their R&D investment.

-The Korean government’s R&D policy has mostly been centered on chaebols.

-Industrial policy is closely intertwined with technology policy. Human resource development policy is also related to technology policy.

-The reverse brain drain of R&D manpower had been an effective tool to source advance technological knowledge until the later stage of industrialization.

-The Korean government was directly involved in business development and even played a market shaping role, along with assistance in technological development in key technology-intensive industry.

-The contribution of GRIs to the National Innovation System has been questionable with the exception of a few cases.