Large, politically well-connected groups of companies – known as chaebol – expanded rapidly by taking on large amounts of cheap debt. Outside shareholders had little influence over the powerful individuals who ran the chaebol, and creditors lent money freely, assuming that the leading chaebol were too important for the government to allow them to go bankrupt.
不同的危机各有各的不同，但韩国危机与20世纪90年代的其他新兴市场危机有着诸多相似之处。“财阀”——即政治上紧密联系的大型公司集团——通过低成本债务迅速扩张。外部股东对财阀内部的权势人物无法产生任何影响，债权人放心地把钱借给财阀，因为他们认定大财阀对政府而言非常重要，政府不会坐视它们倒闭。