Intranational Consumption Risk Sharing in South Korea: 2000–2016

This paper examines consumption risk sharing among 16 regions in South Korea over the 2000–2016 period. The empirical results show that 91.8 percent of shocks to gross regional domestic product are smoothed in South Korea. Capital markets, the tax-transfer system and credit markets absorb 29.9, 28.9 and 33.0 percent of shocks to gross regional domestic product, respectively. Most notably, South Korea relies more on credit markets for risk sharing than capital markets, an opposite pattern to advanced countries like the USA, Canada and Australia. Furthermore, the patterns of consumption risk sharing are different before and after the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, and differences in regional industrial structure and local development can influence these patterns. This paper attempts to infer the connection between these findings and both the rapid economic growth of South Korea and the Asian and global financial crises.