IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/zbw/kdires/200001.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

Bankruptcy of Large Firms and Exit Mechanisms in Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Nam, Ilchong
  • Oh, Soogeun

Abstract

This report deals with two fundamental questions that face the Korean economy: why did so many large firms go bankrupt, and what is wrong with the insolvency mechanisms in Korea? Roughly one third to one half of the medium-sized chaebols went bankrupt or fell into deep financial trouble after the onset of the crisis. In addition, essentially all of the firms belonging to the Daewoo group, one of the top five chaebols, went bankrupt. Some firms affiliated with the other top five chaebols have also fallen into financial difficulties. Massive bankruptcy of chaebol firms led to deep financial difficulties of banks and non-bank financial institutions, which in turn resulted in a massive injection of public funds. Even after the outbreak of the crisis, lack of confidence in the court-supervised bankruptcy proceedings led to the wide use of so-called workouts. The laws on court-supervised bankruptcy proceedings have recently been revised twice, but have not been able to gain full confidence of market participants. The authors claim that the most important factor behind the malfunctioning of bankruptcy proceedings in Korea is the lack of proper corporate governance in financial institutions and large firms. Banks in Korea have been run as if they were government businesses; and as a consequence, they have not been supervised by a proper governance structure that is profit-oriented. Lack of proper governance was the main reason that banks did not act properly as creditors in bankruptcy proceedings and passively followed initiatives of debtor firms and the government. This monograph also contains a chapter focusing on a comparative analysis of bankruptcy proceedings of the following six East Asian countries: Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea. The comparative analysis generally confirms that Singapore and Malaysia are equipped with superior institutional infrastructures concerning corporate governance of large firms and reallocation of resources from bankrupt firms, compared to the other four countries that have been adversely affected by the economic crisis. The monograph concludes with a set of proposals that the authors believe is needed to improve the efficiency of bankruptcy proceedings in Korea.

Suggested Citation

  • Nam, Ilchong & Oh, Soogeun, 2000. "Bankruptcy of Large Firms and Exit Mechanisms in Korea," KDI Research Monographs, Korea Development Institute (KDI), volume 127, number 200001.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kdires:200001
    DOI: 10.22740/kdi.rm.e.2000.01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/200938/1/kdi-res-monograph-2000-01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22740/kdi.rm.e.2000.01?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Oliver D. Hart & John Moore, 1994. "The Economics of Bankruptcy Reform," NBER Chapters, in: The Transition in Eastern Europe, Volume 2, Restructuring, pages 215-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Pesenti, Paolo & Roubini, Nouriel, 1999. "What caused the Asian currency and financial crisis?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 305-373, October.
    3. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti & Nouriel Roubini, 1998. "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis? Part I: A Macroeconomic Overview," NBER Working Papers 6833, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti & Nouriel Roubini, 1998. "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis? Part II: The Policy Debate," NBER Working Papers 6834, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:3:p:939-978 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. David S. Scharfstein & Jeremy C. Stein, 2000. "The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets: Divisional Rent‐Seeking and Inefficient Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(6), pages 2537-2564, December.
    7. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Which Capitalism? Lessons Form The East Asian Crisis," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 11(3), pages 40-48, September.
    8. Rowat, M. & Astigarraga, J., 1999. "Latin American Insolvency Systems. A Comparative Assessment," Papers 433, World Bank - Technical Papers.
    9. David S. Scharfstein, 1998. "The Dark Side of Internal Capital Markets II: Evidence from Diversified Conglomerates," NBER Working Papers 6352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Cho, Y.J. & Kim, J.K., 1995. "Credit Policies and the Industrialization of Korea," World Bank - Discussion Papers 286, World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Byung S. Min, 2007. "Changing Pattern Of Corporate Governance And Financing In The Korean Chaebols," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 26(3), pages 211-230, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Janice Boucher Breuer, 2004. "An Exegesis on Currency and Banking Crises," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 293-320, July.
    2. Béchir Bouzid, 2010. "Titrisation des emprunts hypothécaires et bulle immobilière aux États-Unis : les origines d’une débâcle," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 97(2), pages 101-142.
    3. Allen, Franklin & Gale, Douglas, 2000. "Optimal currency crises," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 177-230, December.
    4. Aghion, Philippe & Bacchetta, Philippe & Banerjee, Abhijit, 2004. "A corporate balance-sheet approach to currency crises," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 6-30, November.
    5. Barbara Stallings, 2004. "Financial Liberalization, Crisis, and Rescue: Lessons for China from Latin America and East Asia?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 48078, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Hyun-Jung Ryoo & Graham Smith, 2002. "Korean stock prices under price limits: variance ratio tests of random walks," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 545-553.
    7. Komulainen, Tuomas, 2001. "Currency crises in emerging markets : Capital flows and herding behaviour," BOFIT Discussion Papers 10/2001, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    8. Junki Kim, 2001. "The Emergence of a Third Party Government in Korea: Contents and Consequences," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(1), pages 95-108, June.
    9. Gérard Charreaux, 2000. "L'approche économico-financière de l'investissement: une vision critique," Working Papers CREGO 1000501, Université de Bourgogne - CREGO EA7317 Centre de recherches en gestion des organisations.
    10. Dosse Toulaboe, 2017. "Real exchange rate misalignment of Asian currencies," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 31(1), pages 39-52, May.
    11. Rahim, Adam Mohamed & Masih, Mansur, 2016. "Portfolio diversification benefits of Islamic investors with their major trading partners: Evidence from Malaysia based on MGARCH-DCC and wavelet approaches," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 425-438.
    12. Mora, Ricardo & Siotis, Georges, 2005. "External factors in emerging market recoveries: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 683-702, April.
    13. Philippe DULBECCO & Jean-Pierre ALLEGRET & COURBIS, 1999. "Financial Liberalisation and Stability of the Financial System in Emerging Markets: the institutional dimension of financial crises," Working Papers 199918, CERDI.
    14. Kowalewski, Oskar & Pisany, Paweł, 2019. "What drove the growth of the corporate bond markets in Asia?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 365-380.
    15. Komulainen, Tuomas, 2004. "Essays on financial crises in emerging markets," Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, number 2004_029.
    16. By Alexander W. Hoffmaister, 2001. "Inflation Targeting in Korea: An Empirical Exploration," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 48(2), pages 1-5.
    17. Massimiliano Pisani, 2011. "Financial Openness and Macroeconomic Instability in Emerging Market Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 501-532, July.
    18. Jacky Fayolle, 1999. "D'une mondialisation à l'autre," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 69(1), pages 161-206.
    19. Sunti Tirapat & Aekkachai Nittayagasetwat, 1999. "An Investigation of Thai Listed Firms' Financial Distress Using Macro and Micro Variables," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 3(2), pages 103-125, June.
    20. F. Gulcin Ozkan, 2005. "Currency and Financial Crises in Turkey 2000 –2001: Bad Fundamentals or Bad Luck?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 541-572, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:kdires:200001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/kdiiikr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.