Introduction It has been a decade since the global economy entered one of the worst economic crises in modern economic history. With the exception of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the global crude oil shock of the 1970s, there has been no example where the global economy has faced such a crisis. The 2008 global financial crisis began with the US subprime mortgage crisis in the US banking system and subsequently spread to the rest of the world. Most economies, including East Asian ones such as Japan and South Korea, entered recession after 2008. India was among the few economies in the world that did not face recession, but it However, it went through a prolonged slowdown. A detailed analysis of the reasons and events leading to such a crisis and its impact on South Korea and India has already been discussed by the author in another article. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay South Korea was exposed to risky securitized instruments issued by U.S. financial institutions in 2008. Therefore, when prices of homes and other assets fell in the United States, the value of securitized instruments related to those assets also fell and South Korea also faced a parallel decline in the prices of these assets. The crisis then spread to the banking sector, drying up the flow of credit and increasing interest rates. South Korea, being an export-based economy, faced a further decline in GDP growth after a drastic drop in global demand for exports following the global crisis. Foreign investment also went into high gear, leading to the collapse of stock markets and the depreciation of the won. The immediate impact of the crisis on the Indian economy was relatively less severe. One reason was the lack of exposure to risky US securitized instruments due to better regulation of the open economy by the Reserve Bank of India. Furthermore, India is not as dependent on exports as South Korea. However, exports of modern services to European countries and the United States have shrunk since the crisis, thus resulting in lower GDP growth. Furthermore, being a popular destination for foreign investment, India has also faced significant foreign capital outflows from stock markets leading to falling stock prices and devaluation of the rupee. Performance of the South Korean economy after 2008 Like most developed economies after the 2008 crisis, South Korea also responded with a series of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies to revive GDP growth. With a dramatic decline in interest rate from 5.25% in October 2008 to around 2% in February 2009, South Korea recorded the lowest real interest rates among all developed economies such as the US, UK, Eurozone and Japan. Through a mix of government spending and tax cuts, South Korea's fiscal policy was three times more expansionary in 2009 than in 2008. GDP growth, which was already decelerating from 5.5% to 2.8% from 2007 to 2008, it was further reduced after the crisis to just 0.7%. The above expansionary policies saw a strong recovery to reach growth of around 6.5% in 2010, the highest economic growth the Korean economy has experienced in the past decade. However, after 2010 average GDP growth remained around 3% per year over the period2011-2014. It fell below 3% annually after 2014, standing at only 2.7% in 2014. The paper attempts to find some reasons behind the economic slowdown in the last decade in general and in the last three years in particular. Exports have been the mainstay of Korean economic growth since the 1960s. In 2008, before the impact of the crisis, around half of South Korea's GDP came from exports. After the crisis, in addition to the decline in exports, the share of exports in GDP also fell to around 47.5%, reaching almost the same pre-crisis level in 2010. This share peaked at 56% in 2014 and then dropped to 44%. % in 2018. Exports declined in value terms during 2014-2016 even as GDP increased, albeit at a slower pace during this period. Therefore, there is still an overall positive correlation between exports and GDP of the South Korean economy. However, after 2014 a slight deviation can be observed between the GDP and export trends. Among the many reasons for South Korea's relatively flat export growth is the change in the nature of China's economic growth. Once the fastest growing economy is fueled by both consumption and investment spending, China's economy is gradually maturing. Its demographic structure is also gradually shifting a significant part of the population towards the elderly age group. Therefore, its import demand has slowed. It should be noted that China is South Korea's largest trading partner and accounts for more than 26% of Korean exports. Furthermore, the growing share of these exports is linked to investment rather than consumer demand. As China revised its investment spending downward, it reduced Korean exports to China in the post-2014 period. The US-China trade war exacerbated this situation. Based on this, the United States has increased import tariffs on many imports from China. This has reduced Chinese exports to the United States in these sectors along with investment in these sectors. This is likely to further reduce Korean exports to China. China's retaliation in the trade war through higher import tariffs on many imports from the United States has also hurt some types of domestic investment, thus affecting demand for some from South Korea. Korean exports have also been affected by restrictions imposed by the Japan on shipments of materials related to chip and display manufacturing to South Korea. This is linked to a diplomatic dispute between the two countries over compensation for forced labor during World War II. However, to measure the impact of international trade on economic growth, net exports or the trade balance are often considered conceptually better. indicator. The trade balance had turned marginally negative for South Korea in 2008, meaning the value of the economy's exports was lower than the value of its imports, a rare phenomenon for the economy. It subsequently turned positive and, with the exception of 2011 where it declined significantly, increased steadily until 2016 despite moderation in GDP growth. It declined over the course of 2017 and 2018, although it did not change significantly, and will be a crucial indicator to watch for the economy going forward. From the above results it can be deduced that the importance of factors other than exports in determining South Korean market growth is increasing albeit very marginally. The theoryStandard macroeconomics classifies demand-side GDP into four basic indicators, viz. consumption spending, investment spending, government spending and net exports. If, despite the improvement in the trade balance until 2016, South Korea faces an economic slowdown, this indicates a negative impact on the remaining three indicators. South Korea's economic growth depends largely on both government and household consumption spending, excluding exports. In particular, household final consumption spending represents almost 50% of GDP, including spending on imported goods. Despite some reduction in this share, it remained slightly above 50% until 2014. But, after 2014, its share fell to around 48% in 2018. One reason for this decline is the overall decline in share of national income allocated to national income. in the hands of families over the last decade. When a larger share of income is pocketed by businesses, it reduces the marginal propensity to consume in the overall economy as households are expected to spend a larger share of their income. Although this decline is not very significant, the distribution of such spending has been unbalanced in recent decades. Even the distribution of income has been unbalanced. As life expectancy has increased over the decades, the percentage of the elderly population has increased dramatically. However, the age up to which the population is economically active has not changed much. This has led to an increased focus on saving during their employment so that they can use these savings after retirement, thus reducing their current marginal propensity to consume. Another factor that has limited the consumption potential of families is their growing indebtedness. South Korea's debt-to-GDP ratio is among the highest in the world. It was already close to 70% in 2007, and then increased regularly to above 80% in 2015 and above 90% in 2019. In addition to these long-term structural reasons behind lower consumer spending, it was also affected of the Sewol ferry disaster in April 2014 in which more than 300 people died, including around 200 students and teachers. It has had a significant negative impact, not only on the social and political aspects of the country, but also slowed down the economy mainly through lower consumption spending and investment spending. However, there was only a temporary reduction in investment spending in 2014, which then remained stable and even increased in the period 2016-2018. Interestingly, South Korea's investment spending did not decline much even after the 2008 crisis, except in 2013. In the electrical and electronics sectors, South Korea made more investments in 2010-2011 to get out of the crisis . Due to the excess capacity created during that period, the demand for equipment in these sectors declined after 2012. Despite this, fixed capital formation in the country has remained around 30% of GDP and has recently exceeded this level. Public spending on final consumption also remained stable. As expected during the last two years of slowdown, such spending has increased to support the economy. At the time this document is going through its final revision, the entire world is facing another slowdown that could result in a global recession due to the spread of the new coronavirus. The exact nature of the spread of this virus is still a work in progress in the medical scientific community. From the evidence available so far, the first victim was from China's Wuhan province. In China, the spread of the virus recorded so far began at the end of December 2019..