restructuring or was, rather, a part of Korea’s structural dilemma that the economy would
inevitably meet with. Delving into deeper causes of the crisis calls for a single analytical
framework under which the crisis is inter-connected with past economic performance,
pre-crisis quandary, and post-crisis recession. That framework, in turn, requires a single
determinant that is applicable to both Korea’s past and present economies.
This paper proposes Korea’s bureaucracy as the determinant. It bolsters the
responsibility of the bureaucracy for economic outcomes both in rain and shine. The
responsibility then hinges on material incentives available to economic bureaucrats in
return for their policy performance. This paper further proposes to attend to post-
retirement jobs as an opportunity for bureaucratic compensation. Finally, this paper
argues that the abundant post-retirement compensations of the past enabled the high
performance of the Korean economy in the 1970s and 1980s, while the decreasing
compensations during the 1990s resulted in the economic disturbance, including the 1997
financial crisis.
The logic appears simple on the surface: deprived of their material benefits,
bureaucrats are likely to neglect their public service, including economic policies,
sometimes ending up with a fatal economic consequence like Korea’s 1997 crisis.
application of the logic to specific events is much more complicated and harder to justify.
One first needs to tackle such established views about the Korean economy as
“developmental state” and “corporate minded” bureaucracy. One might also need to be
able to explain away the possibility of declining bureaucracy in the advent of
3
Korean studies mostly oriented by public administration produced several papers in this vein. For
example, Byungjun Kim, “Gongmuwon e bokjubuding kwa jikmumolipdo (Bureaucratic Bok-ji-bu-dong
and Job Concentration)”, Hankuk Haengjung Hakbo (International Review of Public Administration)
Vol. 28, No. 4 (Winter 1994), pp. 1279-1299; Hojung Kim, “Hankuk Kwanry Haengtae e Kyuljung
Yoin: Bokjibuding e Wonin (Deciding Factors of the Korean Bureaucratic Behavior: the Causes of Bok-
ji-bu-dong)”, Hankuk Haengjung Hakbo (International Review of Public Administration), Vol. 28, No. 4
(Winter 1994), pp. 1255-1277.
3
Convention