Japanese colonialism and Korean development: A critique

New scholarship on economic development in Korea has focused an the beneficial effects of Japanese colonialism and on certain continuities between Korea's growth strategy before and after World War II. We challenge this new revisionism. The growth record under the Japanese occupation was more modest than is often thought, there are greater discontinuities than continuities between the colonial and postwar eras, and political independence was an important factor in subsequent growth. We trace the turning point in Korea's long-term growth to political, policy and institutional changes that occurred following the military's seizure of power in 1961. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.