Promoting Regulatory Reform and Innovation in Korea

In Korea, both the current and former governments have made efforts to enhance regulatory policy to address private sector issues. These include many attempts at regulatory innovation, cases of which can be observed in various areas. For example, new regulatory systems such as prior allowance and later posterior regulation were partially applied to new emerging industries. In addition, there have been a number of regulatory enhancements regarding start-ups, venture business, service industries, life, safety and the environment, small businesses, local provinces, and others. However, these regulatory enhancement cases could hardly be considered radical regulatory innovations. It is rather the case that the regulatory issues are not yet deviated from deregulation. Furthermore, as in KIET (2013), many firms feel that the current regulations have not met a degree of propriety and reasonability in terms of legitimacy, efficiency, or flexibility. Therefore, this paper explores new policy directions for the promotion of regulatory innovation, examining the results of the survey in KIET (2013).