Empowering Korea with new innovations

책 소개

Preface From April 2009 to May 2011, The Korea Herald, Korea’s leading English newspaper, published a total of 46 in-depth articles on the Korean government’s R&D policy. The essays were all written by researchers at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, a staterun think tank specializing in research on science and technology policies and R&D activities. We have compiled the selected articles into two books. The first volume, titled Empowering Korea with New Innovations, offers 24 of them, while the second one, Making the High-Speed Train Fly, presents another 19. The essays discuss major challenges Korea faces in promoting R&D as it undergoes extensive economic, social and demographic changes. The Korean government has long put top priority on economic growth in the belief that a rising tide lifts all boats. Hence its R&D policy has been geared toward accelerating economic development. But in recent years, the benefits of economic growth have not trickled down to the poor. As a result, while the economy has continued to grow, poverty has been on the rise, aggravating social polarization. This has sharply increased demand for welfare, putting a strain on government finances. As the old growth strategy has ceased to work, Korea needs a new approach that ensures all members of society benefit from economic development. This means the Korean government needs to reform its economic and social policies to make economic growth more sustainable. R&D policy is no exception. The government needs to overhaul its R&D policy to ensure that it contributes to making economic development more inclusive and balanced. It is in this context that STEPI researchers discuss the challenges facing Korea’s R&D policymakers. In the first place, they call for a rebalancing of R&D priorities. In particular, they stress the need to stimulate R&D in the service sector. In advanced economies, the service sector is the main engine of growth accounting for about 70 percent of GDP. But in Korea, the service sector remains underdeveloped due to its woefully low productivity?which is about half the OECD average and less than 40 percent of that of the manufacturing sector. One main reason for the service sector’s low productivity is the small amount of R&D investment in services. While the service sector accounts for more than 60 percent of Korea’s GDP, its share of the nation’s R&D investment is a mere 7.1 percent. In contrast, the manufacturing sector takes up about 90 percent of the total, although its contribution to GDP is less than 30 percent. Korea needs to make the service industry a future growth engine because its job creation potential is much bigger than that of the manufacturing industry. In the manufacturing sector, growth is not accompanied by corresponding employment growth?a phenomenon called jobless growth. But the service sector is more labor intensive, which means growth tends to generate jobs. Thus, fostering the service sector will kick off a virtuous cycle of job creation, expansion of domestic demand and output growth. This process will also ease economic and social polarization by reducing the nation’s excessive dependence on manufacturing exports for economic growth. To make the service sector competitive, STEPI researchers urge the government to make intensive R&D investment in services, as it did for the manufacturing sector. To encourage R&D in services, policymakers recently announced that tax credits would be provided to service companies for their R&D spending from 2012. This is a step in the right direction. But the government needs to step up its own R&D investment in services and abolish regulatory hurdles that hinder investment in the service sector. STEPI experts also call for shifting the government’s R&D focus from large corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises. Currently, the government allocates more R&D funds to projects that benefit large companies, although they have become profitable enough to financ…

리뷰 남기기

로그인하면 리뷰를 남길 수 있어요.

리뷰 0개