中文中文 30703070 字字 本科毕业设计（论文）外文翻译外文题目：外文题目： Income, Consumption, Andpoverty in Korea 出出 处：处： Social Indicators Research,2003,no.62 作作 者：者： Joung woo lee INCOME, CONSUMPTION, AND POVERTY IN KOREAJOUNG-WOO LEEABSTRACT： This article examines changes in economic welfare within Korea in terms of income, consumption, and poverty. Analyses of government statistics reveal that it has been extraordinarily successful in raising the average level of both income and consumption , while reducing the incidence of poverty during the last four decades. In reducing the unequal distribution of income during the same period, however, the country has been much less successful. In the aftermath of the 1997 economic crises, the level of poverty has risen due to sharp increases in unemployment. The lives of the poor are at risk since the social safety net system in Korea is only minimal. The heavy concentration of land and wealth in a few hands is a major obstacle to the further enhancement of the quality of economic life among the Korean people. This paper examines the changing quality of economic life especially among Korean workers with systematic analyses of time series data on income, consumption, and poverty. The analyses are based on two assumptions. The first is what John Rawls characterizes as “maximin principle,” i.e., the quality of life in a given society cannot be regarded as satisfactory when some of its citizens are in a miserable state of life. The second premise is that Korean workers have yet to receive their fair share of economic development, although it is internationally regarded as more equitable than what is observed in other developing countriesINCOME GROWTHKorea has displayed unprecedented rapid economic growth from themid- 1960s up until the late 1990s, when an abrupt economic crisis hit the country. Per capita national income increased 80-fold fromU.S.$125 in 1966 to over U.S.$10000 in 1995. This kind of rapid economic growth could be found only in few East Asian countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Another notable feature of economic growth in Korea is that it has not been accompanied by a worsening distribution of income, as witnessed in many Latin American countriesINCOME DISTRIBUTIONIndividual scholars and research institutes have reported that income distribution in Korea has improved during the last couple of decades. The Korea National Statistical Office (hereinafter the NSO) (2000) and Dr. Hak chung Choo (1982, 1992) of the Korea Development Institute are in agreement that income inequality has been lowered in both rural and urban areas since the late 1970s. According to the Farm Households Economic Survey (hereinafter the FHES, which is conducted annually by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery, the Gini coefficient was estimated to be 0.324 for 1967, and 0.288for 1988. This strongly suggests a lowering of income inequality in rural areas over the past decades. When combining the urban and rural income survey data, it is evident hat income distribution in Korea has been moving in the direction of lesser inequality before the economic crisis hit the country in 1997. Nonetheless, the Gini coefficients based on these survey data have recently been called into question (Ahn, 1995; Lee and Whang, 1998). These surveys were not capable of properly incorporating the unearned incomes stemming from the soaring prices of land, houses, and stocks. The windfall gains from those sources occur only once or twice in life, so that people tend to regard them as “abnormal” income, that should not be counted as income in the social surveys. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that occasional income surveys could capture the vast amount of unearned income, which explored in the late 1980s. This is one reason why there is a lingering doubt about the findings of improving income distribution, even though existing. For 1988 alone, for example, the realized capital gains from land were around 20 percent of the Gross National Product (here in after the GNP), and those from the stock market added another 5 percent. The Gini coefficient of 1988, reported by the NSO, was given as 0.336. However, the Gini coefficient is actually estimated to be0.388, one the capital gains arising from land in the late 1980sare taken into account (Lee, 1991). The gains from the booming stock market in the late 1980s further raised the coefficient to 0.412, a figure that is significantly higher than what the NSO originally estimated the coefficient to be. In reality, therefore, it is highly probable that income inequality in Korea is much higher than what is known from the governmental hous