‘97년 체제’와 한국경제 : 토빈세 논의의 함의

Abstract

Korean economy has transfered into '97 System' since the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. The main feature of 97 System is that foreign funds overwhelm Korean economy, quickly shorting the time horizon in managing the economy. Korean economy is now caught in a trap of 'the bad equilibrium' in the sense that foreign speculative funds threats stability of the capital market; fianancial institutions lose their public function; shareholder's capitalism prevails, neglecting the stake holder's interests; and dualism of labor markets strengthens. To overcome of the bad equilibrium of '97 system', it is not enough to implement reforming measures domestically as '97 system' emerged from advancement of foreign funds and their influences into Korean economy. Korea should now directly tackle the problesms caused by the mischieves of international specultive foreing funds, and have voices in addressing them in the global politics. Korea has the right to do as Korea was the biggest victim of the East Asian financial crisis in 1997, mainly caused by volatility of foreign investors. This paper proposes that the Tobin Tax could be used as a leverage for the Korean government to engage in the discussion of reforming the international financial structure and yield influences in the global politics to make the current trend of globalization more stable to plug into.