Economists often speak about exchange rates as if there were a universally correct answer. A strong currency is supposedly a sign of economic success. A weak currency is often portrayed as a symptom of weakness. Yet when one looks at two of the world's most successful export nations, Switzerland and South Korea, this neat theory starts to fall apart. Switzerland has one of the strongest currencies on the planet. South Korea has spent much of its modern economic history with a comparatively...

South Korea is no longer only shipping ships, chips, and cars. It is increasingly sending savings, pensions, and investment capital into the world. For decades, South Korea was best known as an export powerhouse for goods such as ships, cars, semiconductors, and smartphones. That story is still true, but it is no longer the whole story. Korea is now also becoming a significant exporter of capital, with households, pension funds, insurers, and other institutions increasingly deploying money...

South Korea’s housing market stands apart for its jeonse system—a vast lump-sum lease that turns tenants into lenders and landlords into informal bankers—and for an extreme concentration of demand in Seoul. Decades of policy swings, from curbing speculation to pushing new supply, have done little to ease the capital’s severe unaffordability. Even as national prices cool, jeonse is weakening under regulatory shifts and fraud scandals, prompting a slow pivot toward monthly rents and mortgages.