Abstract: I examine how the shift from an exam to a district based high school assignment rule impacts intergenerational mobility and residential inequality. A stylized model predicts that under district assignment, household income relative to one’s ability becomes a stronger predictor of achievement, and higher income households sort towards and increase housing prices in the better school districts. I test predictions utilizing a unique policy change from South Korea in the 1970s. High school admission had traditionally been exam based in South Korea. However, between 1974 and 1980 the central government shifted several cities to a school district based system. I find that the reform increased intergenerational income elasticity from 0.15 to 0.31, and that higher income households migrated to the reform cities. I next examine whether school districting altered residential land prices within a city using a first differenced boundary discontinuity design. By focusing on the immediate years before and after the creation of school districts in Seoul, I find that residential land prices increased by about 13% point more on average and by about 26% point across boundaries in the better school district. In sum, I find that the shift from a merit to a location based student assignment rule decreases intergenerational mobility and increases residential inequality.

Professor Lee's research intersects the fields of economic development, political economy, urban economics and public economics, and regionally focuses on Korea and East Asia. Some of his recent research on Korea examines the impact of economic sanctions on the urban elites in North Korea and the impact of education policy on intergenerational mobility in South Korea. His research also examines entrepreneurship and urban growth, the efficacy of disaster aid delivery, and the relationship between aid and trade. Professor Lee is a member of the US-Korea Scholar-Policymaker Nexus Program organized by the Mansfield Foundation and the Korea Foundation. He received his PhD in economics from Brown University, master of public policy from Duke University, and bachelor degree in architecture from Seoul National University. As he made the transition from architecture to economics, he worked as an architecture designer and real estate development consultant.

Korea is one of the leading countries in technology-driven global markets for semiconductors, HDTVs, and mobile phones; and in shipbuilding industry, but Korea has already faced challenges in its global markets.

Dr. Dongwook Lee, 2013 Visiting Scholar in Korean Studies, will discuss Korea's industrial convergence policies that would help Park administration achieve its national agenda, a creative economy.

Dr. Lee is Director General at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in Korea, and has served as a government official for the past twenty-two years. He led and took part in developing industrial convergence policies and laws. Dr. Lee holds a BA in business administration from Yonsei University, an MA in public administration from Seoul National University, and a PhD in economics from Konkuk University, in Korea. 

Koret Distinguished Lecture Series: Lecture II

If East Asia is to make its anticipated much greater contribution to the world political and economic order in the coming years, the states and the peoples of the region will have to make continuous efforts to maintain and increase respect for the common values of humanity. Key to this is building mutual trust through historical reconciliation and rectification, which is necessary to ensure regional peace and prosperity and contribute to the global good. In the process of constructing a "civil consensus" resting on such universal human values as democracy, human rights, development cooperation, environmental protection, and ensuring peace, we must consider the role that the intellectual community in Asia should play alongside other world citizens. In his talk, President Oh will re-examine the responsibility of education in general and universities in particular in cultivating future world citizens who share the goal of upholding humanity’s common values. 

Dr. Oh received his BA in Political Science from Seoul National University, and his MPA and PhD in Public Administration from New York University.

The Koret Distinguished Lecture Series was established in 2013 with the generous support of the Koret Foundation. 

The Korea Colloquium on History and Culture

We have ample examples of efforts to "engage" adversaries, from Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik to Kissinger’s conception of détente and Kim Dae Jung’s Sunshine policy. Yet much more attention has been given to understanding the logic of sanctions than the logic of inducements. Drawing an array of new sources of information on the North Korean economy, from the direction of its foreign trade to two firm‐level surveys of Chinese and South Korean firms doing business in the country, we consider the political and economic logic of engagement. Like sanctions, the conditions under which engagement strategies are likely to work are subject to a number of constraints. Target governments appear well aware of the risks of engagement and there is only mixed evidence for claims that such engagement has transformative effects.

Dr. Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and Director of Korea-Pacific Program (KPP) at the University of California, San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

Stephan Haggard works on the political economy of developing countries, with a particular interest in Asia and the Korean peninsula. He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990), The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995, with Robert Kaufman), The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe (2000, with Robert Kaufman). His current research focuses on the relationship between inequality, democratization and authoritarianism in developing countries. 

Professor Haggard has written extensively on the political economy of North Korea with Marcus Noland, including Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (2007) and Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (2011). Haggard and Noland co-author the "North Korea: Witness to Transformation" blog at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Neo-liberalism, which became a dominant ideology in policy-making in many countries from the early 1980's, is now blamed for worsening inequality and the 2008 world financial crisis. As the recovery process is moving very slowly due to lingering uncertainties from the Euro crisis, going back to the European model of a welfare state is not a feasible policy direction for most countries. Thus, now is the time to seek a new paradigm for a sustainable capitalism and welfare state, Dr. Sang-Mok Suh argues. He proposes 'welfarenomics,' implying a better balance between economics and welfare.

Welfarenomics means promoting a sustainable calitalism through modifying the neo-classical market economy model in three ways: (1) strengthening the role of government in the areas of formulating & implementing national strategy; (2) increasing social values of business activities through developing new CSV (Creating Shared Value) activities; and (3) creating a habitat for co-development through activating civil society. Welfarenomics also implies promoting a sustainable welfare state through modifying the European welfare state model in three ways: (1) building a foundation for 'workfare' through developing customized job programs for welfare beneficiaries; (2) utilizing various welfare programs as means for social innovation; and (3) improving the effectiveness of welfare programs through applying various management concepts to the field of social welfare.

The presentation will cite some of the recent experiences in Korea, but the concept of welfarenomics can be applied to any country in need of achieving both economic growth and social equity.

For the past four decades, Dr. Sang-Mok Suh has been a policy-making expert in both economics and social welfare. After receiving his PhD in economics from Stanford University in 1973, Professor Suh worked at the World Bank for five years and at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), a top South Korean think tank, for ten years as a researcher. His doctoral dissertation was on the relationship between economic growth and income distribution. In 1986, he led the research team at KDI for formulating the National Pension Scheme for Korea. He was vice president of KDI, 1984–1988. As a Korea National Assembly member, 1988–2000, Dr. Suh played the key role of coordinating economic and welfare policies between the ruling party, on the one hand, and the government and opposition parties, on the other. While he was Minister of Social Welfare, 1993–1995, Dr. Suh formulated a comprehensive welfare strategy for Korea for the first time and initiated the Osong Bio Industrial Complex.