Has South Korea's GDP exceeded Japan's?

Japan still has a larger economy ($4 trillion GDP vs Korea's $1.71 trillion). However South Korea spends more in R&D. Samsung, SK Hynix, and other Korean companies captured critical positions in memory chips, displays, and batteries. Did I mention their advances in the auto industry?

So South Korea has surpassed Japan on a per capita GDP basis.

Japan is facing some steep headwinds as it's population ages out.

Our World In Data

The economist Paul Krugman once said, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything”.

When workers can produce more value in the same amount of time, economies can grow faster, and living standards can rise.

The chart shows the productivity metric published by the Penn World Table for South Korea and Japan. It measures gross domestic product (GDP) per hour of work.

Since 2000, South Korea’s productivity has more than doubled, narrowing what was once a vast gap with Japan. It has now even surpassed its neighbor.

Many forces affect productivity, but one stands out in Korea’s case: its commitment to innovation.

The country spends nearly 5% of GDP on research and development, among the highest shares in the world, and it files far more patents per million people than any other nation.