This Recession Is Reason to Cheer Amid the Carnage
South Korea’s shallow contraction reflects its competent handling of the Covid pandemic.
Korea may have taken a bullet, but it dodged the cannon ball.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Hail the South Korean recession.
Only in the world of Covid-19 is a poor economic report card something to cheer. Gross domestic product shrank 3.3% in the second quarter from the previous three months, the Bank of Korea said Thursday. That was worse than forecast and followed a decline of 1.3% for the January-March period. No matter: The performance is streets ahead of many industrialized countries. Japan, for example, will show a contraction of more than 20%, according to economists. Global GDP is likely to have dipped about 10% in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to Bloomberg Economics.