Korean Defense Reform 2.0 after COVID-19: A Budget Perspective

摘要

This paper investigates how COVID-19 affects Defense Reform (DR) 2.0 in Soul Korea from a budget perspective. The Korean defense reform, which was launche in 2006, has rarely met its annual budget requirements. Following Korea's budgi decision-making process, this paper examines the reasons for the defense budgi shortfall. A vector autoregressive (VAR) analysis with annual Korean data show that both the national debt and government budget significantly influence th defense budget. This result implies that a stable DR 2.0 stance can be maintaine by an expansive fiscal policy against COVID-19 in the short term. Howeve COVID-19 would lead to a lower defense budget due to increasing national del in the midterm, which limits implementation of DR 2.0. This paper's findings ca help policymakers design new strategies for securing the defense budget after th pandemic.