Please register at www.eai-aparc-seminar.or.kr on the day of the event.

A panel of experts in international relations and commerce will discuss challenges facing South Korea and the country's strategy in light of the current tensions between the U.S. and China. This event is co-sponsored by East Asia Institute in Korea.

Panelists:

David Kang, Maria Crutcher Professor in International Relations; Professor of Business, and East Asia Languages and Cultures; Director of Korean Studies Institute, USC

Seungjoo Lee, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Chung-Ang University, Korea

Charles Freeman, Senior Vice President for Asia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Taeho Bark, President, Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute; former Minister of Trade, Korea

Discussants:

Yong Suk Lee, Deputy Director of the Korea Program, Shorestein APARC; SK Center Fellow, FSI,  Stanford University

Seong-Ho Sheen, Professor of International Security, Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University, Korea

Moderators:

Gi-Wook Shin, Director of APARC; Senior Fellow, FSI; William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea; Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

Yul Sohn, President, East Asia Institute; Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Korea

Watch the recorded event at https://youtu.be/Hoz0cXtQfR4.

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

Asia has made remarkable progress over the past decades and is now at the forefront of the global economy in growth terms. That said, there are several near-term risks that could derail Asia’s growth momentum, including trade tensions and too-low-for-long global interest rates. In this talk, Changyong Rhee will discuss the Asian economic outlook, focusing on Korea in the context of regional and global challenges.

Rhee is the Director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he oversees the Fund’s work on the region, including its lending operations and bilateral and multilateral surveillance of economies ranging from China, Japan, and India to the Pacific Islands. Prior to joining the IMF in 2014, Rhee was Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB); Secretary General and Sherpa of the Presidential Committee for the 2010 G-20 Seoul Summit; Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and Chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission of Korea; professor of economics at Seoul National University and the University of Rochester. He has also been a frequent policy advisor to the government of Korea, including in the Office of the President, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Bank of Korea, the Korea Securities Depository, and the Korea Development Institute. Rhee has published widely in the fields of macroeconomics, financial economics, and on the Korean economy. He holds a PhD from Harvard University and an undergraduate honors degree from Seoul National University, both in economics.

 

Moon Jae-in administration increased South Korea’s minimum wage by nearly 30 percent in 2018 and 2019 under its political slogan of "income-led growth." The idea was that the higher minimum wage would boost low-wage earners’ earnings, thus the income inequality would be reduced while promoting economic growth with increased labor income and expenditure of low-wage workers and their households. This idea was, however, heavily criticized by those who argued that the minimum wage could not be a tool for economic growth and there could be a negative effect on employment.

Lee will discuss empirical findings from his research on the Korean minimum wage including the effect of the recent wage hikes. Using employer-employee matched data and longitudinal data on the universe of establishments, he estimated the effect of the minimum wage on net job growth and tried to decompose the effect into job creation and destruction by existing establishments as well as by establishment entry and exit. He found a significant negative effect of the minimum wage on employment growth; and also that ignoring the minimum wage’s effect on the self-employed could underestimate the adverse effect on total employment. To explain the mechanism, he focuses on the Korean labor market's unique feature—a high share of the self-employed in the workforce and their financial marginality. His findings demonstrate that the minimum wage’s effect and its channels should differ across countries depending on labor market institutions and structure.

Jungmin Lee is a professor of economics at Seoul National University in Korea, and also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Germany and at the Center for Research & Analysis of Migration at University College London in UK. Previously, he was an assistant professor at University of Arkansas and Florida International University, and an associate professor at Sogang University in Korea. His current research focuses on Korean labor market and education policies, interactions between health and labor market outcomes, and North Korean refugees. He has been a member of editorial board of many economics journals in Korea. He was the chief editor for the Korean Journal of Labor Economics and he is currently a Co-Editor for the Korean Economic Review; and was a member of the committee on youth employment of the Korea Tripartite Commission. He has published more than 50 papers in academic journals, mostly about the Korean economy. He received a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Seoul National University and PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.