Park, Hun Joo, and Yuen-Sook Park

Abstract
This paper investigates the causes underlying the tragic story of the demise of Korea’s bicycle industry, from one that appeared to be as competitive as Taiwan’s up until the early 1970s to its almost complete dissolution and collapse. Whereas Taiwan went on to overtake Japan as the world’s number one bicycle exporter by 1980, Korea’s bicycle industry peaked in the late 1980s without ever reaching its maturity both in terms of export and production performances and then hopelessly declined to fall apart by the late 1990s. This paper examines three key causal factors: Samchuly-Kia’s monopolistic complacency; Korea’s industrial structure and the assemblersupplier relations; and the state’s unbalanced and big chaebolbiased industrial policies. In so doing, it contributes to rethinking and redefining the role of government and industrial policy in managing so-called sunset industries.
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