The Effects of Neoliberal "Reforms" on the Post-Crisis Korean Economy

In December 1997 the IMF offered Korea loans to help alleviate its financial crisis. These loans were accompanied by what the IMF called “extreme structural conditionality.” Korea was required to replace its traditional East Asian economic system with a neoliberal model. We review economic performance in the neoliberal era. Growth has slowed, poverty and inequality have risen, and investment spending has stagnated, while foreign ownership of Korean firms and banks has skyrocketed. We argue that foreign investment has not helped Korea. For example, by leading a shift from corporate to consumer lending, foreign control of Korea’s financial markets has constrained capital accumulation and helped create an excessively indebted household sector, while making it harder for the government to adopt progressive economic policies. We conclude that the eight year experiment with radical neoliberal restructuring has turned out well for foreign capital and wealthy Koreans, but has been a failure for the majority of Korea’s people.

Fintech: the next step in banking and finance

Treball Final de Grau en Finances i Comptabilitat. Codi: FC1049. Curs acadèmic: 2016/2017Throughout this dissertation, we will analyse the major changes that digital revolution has meant to the financial world, and how this technological improvements have created new financial platforms which operate separately from the banking sector. We will detailedly examine the segment of financial Startups and how do they work by examining one of the most important Spanish Fintech in the crowdlending market. Overall, it is important to point out the influence of this technological developments for the society and the repercussion these have in traditional banking, which has experienced a big transformation that is allowing it to compete with this new financial players

Do Main Banks Extract Rents from their Client Firms? Evidence from Korean Chaebol

Using a unique data set on all industrial firms listed on Korea Stock Exchange and KOSDAQ stock market from 1991 to 2000, we find that cash ratios for chaebol firms are lower than for non-chaebol firms. Controlling for access to the bond market and financial services arms does not change this result. We do however find that there is a shift in the degree of bank power over the last decade. Consistent with the main bank monopoly hypothesis during the corporate restructuring process after the financial crisis in 1997, the interest differential charged to chaebol firms is significantly higher than the earlier period, suggesting extraction of rents against chaebol client firms by main banks.Cash holdings, bank power, rent extraction, Korean chaebol

Money for Nothing, Your Crisis for Free?: A Comparative Analysis of Consumer Credit Policies for Post-1997 South Korea and Thailand

Both the South Korean and Thai governments encouraged consumer credit card usage to boost consumer spending and reinvigorate the national economy following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Today, almost a decade following the crisis, the authors provide a comparative analysis of how policymakers in both South Korea and Thailand have attempted to regulate the rapid upsurge in consumer credit card debt in their respective economies. This Article also notes some of the benefits and risks of the approaches taken by the South Korean and Thai governments, using as focal points the South Korean government’s Individual Debtor Rehabilitation Act, a personal debt relief program introduced by the Thai Ministry of Finance in 2005, and a series of Bank of Thailand credit card regulations