>mperial aid=the rocket booster theory. Why not make or at least point to a
>convincing argument that this variable was as important as you suggest?
I don't have stats for the 1950s at hand, but in the 1960s, S Korea received a total of $1.6 billion in "official unrequited transfers" - free money from foreign governments, meaning U.S. aid. The aid shrank as the decade passed and SK's economy grew, but from 1960-62, the aid averaged almost 8% of GDP; for the decade as a whole, it was 4% of GDP. That's a pretty big number, that allowed SK to finance a large merchandise trade deficit painlessly.
Doug