There has been a lot of studies into the economic performance of south korea and the other asian tigers compared to latin american countries that had similar le

There has been a lot of studies into the economic performance of south korea and the other asian tigers compared to latin american countries that had similar levels of economic development after WWII and one commonality is the inability of government subsidies to influence export success. A product exported on the global market by a country desperate for foreign investment probably doesn't have the means to gain a competitive advantage through direct capital investment or subsidies. Of course, a country can always be competitive by keeping wages low (probably artificially low in south korea) but I think south korea and the other asian tigers got a lot of things right that aren't comparable to how mainland china approached economic reform. Besides being of a duration of five years there isn't a lot in common the economic planning of the soviet union and south korea in the aftermath of the Korean war. The soviet union's plans controlled the allocation of almost every resource and good in the economy and its ultimate price. South Korea's planning was mostly limited to guiding government investment and lacked the policy levers available to Gosplan.