ABSTRACT
Korea is well known for its rapid economic development since the 1960s. Indeed, the economy took off with a series of fi ve-year development plans led by President Park Chung-hee’s regime. Despite a temporary setback due to the First Oil Shock in 1972, the average annual growth rate during the two decades of the 1960s and 1970s was almost 10 percent, which pushed up per capita income from below $100 in 1960 to around $1,700 in 1979. The whole society was truly dynamic and became more and more confi dent of its own economic success.
