Issues in International Political Economy - Latin America's 100 Years of Lagging Performance - December 2005, Number 72

The first time I paid attention to South Korea’s economy some 50 years ago when I as a junior State Department officer, I served on the desk responsible for Japanese and Korean affairs. The consensus of informed observers then was that South Korea’s economic prospects were dismal after years of Japanese occupation and the destruction from the Korean War. The country’s GDP per capita, as best determined, was the equivalent of $60.

Sidney Weintraub