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How South Korea Broke the Development Mold

Over the past several decades, South Korea has transformed itself from an authoritarian regime with a half-closed, state-led economy into a robust democracy with a very open market economy. It achieved this not by blindly implementing the Washington Consensus, but by going slow where it needed to and taking calculated detours.

SEOUL – South Korea is one of just a few countries ever to transform itself from a low- to high-income economy, and the only country to go from a recipient of aid from the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee to a DAC donor. It achieved this not by blindly following a pre-designed development path, but by taking the right detours.

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