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Category Archives: Book reviews: Business & economy
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2005)
Stern(8,g)
Stubbs's thesis is simple: that one of the key drivers of Asia's economic growth has been not free market economics, not Confucian values, not the developmental state, not Japanese or American hegemony, but war, both hot and cold.
Stubbs takes seven countries - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand - and surveys the development of their economies since the middle of the twentieth century.
His thesis is at its most persuasive in the first 30 years of his survey. Briefly, the second world war destroyed the old order in the countries. Infrastructure was devastated, but so were the pre-existing hierarchies and vested interests who might have resisted change (such as land reform) in the post-war world. ...
Ha-Joon Chang: Bad Samaritans
18-Jul-07
Random House, 2007
Stern(9,g)
Read a typical book which espouses liberal free-trade globalisation and a typical reaction is "Yes, but..." Books such as "Lexus and the Olive Tree" are well written, and carry you along in the sweep of the argument. But you have a niggling sense of unease that something must be wrong with what's being said -- that it can't be that simple. Like listening to an interview with a bullying politician you know there are counter-arguments, if only he would shut up and let you think.
This book articulates that "but" comprehensively and elegantly.
Jang is not anti-globalization (he recognises that development is faster when countries are interconnected -- though he does note the DPRK's invention of synthetic thread, vinalon, developed ...
(Seoul Selection, 2007)
Stern(9,g)
With a title like "Mastering Business in Korea" the current book might well turn off the casual reader. But as well as having, as its title suggests, a business angle, it can also be used as a more general cultural guide. And because this is a practical book written by people who have lived in Korea for years and make a living out of advising foreigners on how to succeed there, even when talking about the most business-oriented of topics there are little nuggets which a generalist can tuck away for future reference.
Such as. When recruiting a Korean locally, an employer is advised to gain the employee's consent to take a copy of his or her clan records ...
The Rise and Fall of Chaebols (Cambridge, 2003)
Stern(8,g)
A welcome and very detailed examination of the history and structure of the Korean business conglomerates. The strengths of this book are manifold. First and foremost is the wealth of evidence sourced from the Korea Information Service which provides some raw data for some hard conclusions. And the evidence is marshalled in a user-friendly manner so that in general the arguments are clear.
The book starts with setting some of the economic background to the 1997 crisis. This is important because it highlights that what happened to Korea was not just a domino effect from the currency crisis which started with the collapse of the Thai Baht in July 1997 and which led to ...
Mark Clifford: Troubled Tiger
05-Jul-06
(M.E. Sharpe, 1998)
Stern(9,g)
Chronicles the modern history of Korea from the 1960s to the mid-90s, focusing on the drive for economic growth and the control exerted by the Blue House over the direction of the economy. Clifford gives us a politically balanced view, emphasising the successes of Park Chung-hee, but not shrinking from laying bare the corruption, coercion and mistakes made by Park, Chun and their successors.
The development of the Chaebols is covered - explaining how they were family feifdoms (and still are?), and how their growth has been geared towards not profits but growth in sales and assets - at almost any cost; and how their growth has been funded less by equity capital investment and more by loans from ...
