Private Equity and Asian Political Economy "Domestic" Private Equity Funds as New Actors

Private equity funds, particularly those headquartered in the U.S., have come under heavy attack internationally from civil society and regulators. At the same time, locally owned private equity funds have unexpectedly appeared in significant numbers across emerging markets. The analysis in this paper illustrates how actors that are only notionally domestic are introducing the neoliberal private equity model into Asian countries, particularly China and Korea.