Capitalism in South Korea, 1945-2025

The Reischauer Center hosts Dr. Keun Lee at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center (555 Pennsylvania Ave NW) in room B262 at 5:15pm. On Tuesday, November 10 th at 5:15pm , the Reischauer Center will host Dr. Keun Lee for a book talk on Capitalism in South Korea, 1945-2025 . Dr. Lee holds positions at Chung-Ang University and Seoul National University. The event will be held in room B262 of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center (555 Pennsylvania Ave NW). Professor, Keun Lee, will present a new book by him on, Capitalism in South Korea, 1945-2025: compressed development, decompression & diverging convergence , published by Oxford Univ Press in September 2026. This book provides an interdisciplinary and analytical account of the evolution of South Korea since 1945. This book employs a framework of “compressed development, decompression, and convergence” to better understand Korea’s turbulent journey, which has been marked by economic miracles, crises, and, more recently, a slowdown in growth and rising inequality. The book begins by defining “decompression” as political democratization and economic liberalization while demonstrating that economic achievements under the regime of compressed growth enabled the emergence of a Korean middle class that demanded political freedom, facilitating a peaceful transition to democracy in the late 1980s. Second, we show how the post-crisis reforms imposed by the IMF set Korea on a trajectory of convergence with Anglo-American capitalism and brought an end to the so-called “East Asian miracle.” That is, IMF reforms inflicted long-term costs on the Korean economy, such as low investment and growth and rising inequality associated with increasing segmentation of the labor market and asymmetric sharing of the burdens of labor market flexibilization. Third, the book highlights the unexpected co-existence of two different paths of convergence displayed by Korea. The first path involves convergence with Anglo-American capitalism, which is characterized by slow growth, worsening inequality, and “free but not-so-clean” democracy. The second path is convergence with the “safe capitalism” of several continental European countries, which is typified by low birth rates, low divorce and crime rates, and long-life expectancy, as well as the pursuit of active labor market policies emulating Northern Europe. The book concludes that contemporary Korea is undergoing a period of “diverging convergence.” That is, Korea shows some signs of converging with certain advanced capitalist nations while also remaining distinct according to various indicators. Keun Lee is Distinguished professor at Chung-Ang University (Economics) and Seoul National University (emeritus). He obtained Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the winner of the 2014 Schumpeter Prize for his monograph on Schumpeterian Analysis of Economic Catch-up (2013 Cambridge Univ. Press), and also the 2019 Kapp Prize by EAEPE (European Association of Evolutionary Political Economy). He is also awarded the title of EBES Fellow of the Year 2023 by the EBES (Eurasian Business and Economics Society). He writes regularly for Project Syndicate. Previously, He served as the Vice-chairman of the National Economic Advisory Council for the chair and President of Korea, also as the President of the International Schumpeter Society (2016-18), as a member of the Committee for Development Policy of UN (2013-18), and as a GFC member of the World Economic Forum (2016-19). He has done many consultancy works with major international organizations, like ADB, WIPO, UNIDO, World Bank, OECD, and ERIA, and has served as keynote speakers and advisors in many occasions hosted by many national governments and their ministries, such as China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkie, South Africa, Rwanda, and Uganda. His total citations received is about 18,000 with H-index of 63 and I-10 index of 173 (Google Scholar) as of Fall 2026. He is also an editor of Research Policy, and associate editor of Industrial and Corporate China.