The Impact of South Korea's Foreign Relations Policy on Its Phenomenal Economic Growth - Dissertation Example

The paper “The Impact of South Korea's Foreign Relations Policy on Its Phenomenal Economic Growth ” is an example of a macro & microeconomics dissertation. The dissertation empirically examines the impact of South Korean international and foreign policies on its economy for the period 1994-2015. A combination of literature review and empirical research was used for the study. The literature review discussed several theories and models of international policies, foreign policies, and economic policies.

The review helped to bring out some important factors for international relations and foreign relation policies. These factors were evaluated in the South Korean context and a score was given to each factor. The scoring system allowed the factors and the economic indicator performance to be rated on a -3 to + 3 scales. Databases of IMF and the World Bank were accessed to obtain data for the study period for 15 important economic indicators. The data were analyzed with graphs to understand the performance.

The findings indicate that for the study period, all the economic indicators have shown good performance with an average score of +2.13. International relations factors received a score of +2.5 and foreign relations factors received a score of +2.1. The inference and conclusions drawn are that South Korea has managed its foreign policies and international policies to benefit the economy.1. Introduction South Korea or the Republic of Korea, one of the 'Tiger Economies' and one of the Asian Tigers, has shown remarkable progress in its industrial and economic growth.

Along with Taiwan, and Singapore, South Korea has excelled in the fields of automobiles, shipping, electronics, trading, and in many other areas of the economy. The nominal GDP in 2015 was $1.848 trillion, placing it 11th in the global rank of GDP growth. The GDP per capita in 2015 was $35,485. Until 1962, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. However, by adopting an outward-facing economic policy, the nation has managed to become one of the G-20 group members of advanced economies in the world (Hoa and Harvie, 2016).

This growth was managed in one generation of business leaders, created by family-owned conglomerates called Chaebols such as Daewoo, Hyundai, LG, and many others.