Reports

The Korean innovation system is in many ways highly developed and has helped to underpin Korea’s rapid industrialisation. However, long-standing policy emphases on manufacturing and large firms are today in question. Structural problems - such as the relatively weak innovation performance of SMEs, a lagging services sector and limited domestic job creation among the industrial conglomerates - have led to a shift in policy priorities. This shift is crystallised in the current government’s Creative Economy Strategy, which entails a far-reaching set of measures aimed at fostering cutting-edge innovation and consolidating a knowledge-based economy increasingly driven by high-value services. This review addresses Korea’s industry and technology policies and institutions, and provides policy recommendations.

This publication provides internationally comparable data on tax levels and tax structures for Indonesia and Malaysia. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. By extending this OECD methodology to Asian countries, Revenue Statistics in Asian Countries enables meaningful cross-country comparisons about tax levels and structures not only between Asian economies, but also between them and their industrialised peers. Future editions will cover additional Asian countries.

The average worker in Korea faced a tax burden on labour income (tax wedge) of 21.4% in 2013 compared with the OECD average of 35.9%. Korea was ranked 30 of the 34 OECD member countries in this respect.

Related Documents

This note presents key findings for Korea from Society at a Glance 2014 - OECD Social indicators. This 2014 publication also provides a special chapter on: the crisis and its aftermath: a “stress test” for societies and for social policies.

Related Documents

The story of Korean education over the past 50 years is one of remarkable growth and achievement. Korea is one of the top performing countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey and among those with the highest proportion of young people who have completed upper secondary and tertiary education.

Related Documents

The productivity level in services relative to manufacturing is particularly low in Korea, dragging down economy-wide labour productivity, which is significantly below the average of the upper-half of OECD countries.

Related Documents

Korea has achieved robust economic growth relative to other OECD countries since the financial and economic crisis, but its growth prospects are burdened by high levels of household debt and, in the medium term, rapid population ageing.

Related Documents

In Korea's dynamic labour market, job displacement (involuntary job loss due to firm closure or downsizing) affects many workers over the course of their working lives. Some workers are more vulnerable than others to this risk and may face long periods of unemployment/inactivity after displacement, particularly if their skills are not well-matched to emerging job opportunities. Even when they find new jobs, displaced workers tend to be paid less, have fewer benefits and are more likely to be overskilled than in the jobs they held prior to displacement. Helping displaced workers get back into good jobs quickly should be a key goal of labour market policy. To achieve this goal, Korea needs to increase resources devoted to re-employment programmes, such as job-search training and job matching, to improve their performance and better target those who need the most help. Existing training programmes need to be revised to ensure that people are obtaining skills that will help them find work. The social safety net also needs to be strengthened to lower the personal and societal costs of displacement, notably by improving the coverage of unemployment benefits.

Governments are major issuers of debt instruments in the global financial market. This volume provides quantitative information on central government debt instruments for the 34 OECD member countries to meet the analytical requirements of users such as policy makers, debt management experts and market analysts. Statistics are presented according to a comprehensive standard framework to allow cross-country comparison. Country methodological notes provide information on debt issuance in each country as well as on the institutional and regulatory framework governing debt management policy and selling techniques.