East Asia's Squid Game Economies
The increasing financialization of East Asia’s economies has seen inequality rise to levels unseen in decades, inspiring such dystopian visions as Squid Game and the Oscar-winning South Korean film Parasite. By adopting the right measures, policymakers can begin to reverse this trend and ensure that the region’s economic future is brighter than these recent on-screen portrayals suggest.
SEOUL – Squid Game, a dystopian South Korean drama on Netflix, is one of the world’s most-watched television series. Like Parasite, which won Best Picture at the 2020 Oscars, Squid Game highlights the increasing gap between South Korea’s rich and poor. A similar disparity now exists in many, if not most, developed economies.