imports and on external capital, and over sixty pages of statistical tables. So comprehensive in scope, this volume approaches reference work quality. Between 1961 and 1976 Korea has been transformed from a poor, developing country into a semi-industrial, middleincome nation. Korea’s Fourth Plan, slated to run from 1977 to 1981 projects that GNP will continue to rise at the rate of about nine percent yearly during that period. Given this projection, The World Bank identifies the two principal longterm issues to be exports and the distribution of income. The comparative advantage in exports will shift from labor intensive products to capital and skill intensive products like electronics, machinery, and shipbuilding. The widening gap between rural and urban incomes constitutes the main problem in income distribution. Economic policy is one of the main issues addressed in Professor Harold Sunoo’s book, Americu’s Dilemma in Asia: The Case of South Korea. Sunoo argues that Korea’s &dquo;economic miracle&dquo; is a sham which has not improved the living conditions of the majority of the population and which has left the Korean economy dominated by foreign capital not unlike the period under Japanese colonialism. There is no doubt that wealth is not equally divided and that many in Korea live at or below subsistence levels. The World Bank study under review here reports that the bottom 40 percent of the population receives 18 percent of income while the top 20 percent receives 45 percent of income. The middle 40 percent receive 37 percent of income. While this is hardly an egalitarian distribution, it nevertheless compares favorably with most developing countries. Sunoo also laments Korea’s foreign indebtedness of seven billion dollars. However, the World Bank concludes that since export earnings have realized
Collapse