Preface

This book originated with a research grant I received from the National Research Foundation of Korea (No. B00007). Given only to a selected number of “star” scholars, this Ministry of Education funded grant requires scholars to write a single-authored monograph over a five-year period. Before I received it, I had, like most economists, focussed my energies mainly on writing journal articles. Although I had published my doctoral thesis as a book some time ago, I felt that writing an article for a journal was a far more valuable contribution than writing a book. Needless to say, I did not like the idea of writing one, and without the grant, this book would not have existed.

I have since realized my folly. Writing a monograph became an opportunity to synthesize my work and to compile the ideas I have scattered across journals. In one sense, this book is an outcome of the Korean government's “industrial policy” in the area of education. While the focus of Korean industrial policy during the catch-up period was to promote specific industries, the current priority of the Korean government is to boost the level of academic scholarship.