The characteristics and position of the economic structures of Estonia and Korea among the OECD countries

The present study is a follow up to a previous paper by the same authors that aimed to systematize the similarities and differences of the economic structures of the countries of the European Union. This errand has been expanded to include the countries of the OECD. The starting point of the study is the share of employment in the 14 sectors of the economy as well as that of the 10 branches of manufacturing on the basis of which 3-4 latent principal components will be synthesized. These components will be used to explain the typology of the countries. The first two components are a repeat of those found in the EU study and differentiate three groups of countries - evolved service based economies, tourism based economies, and manufacturing based transition economies. The following two components on the other hand are new and present a differentiation based on the proportion of employment in the public and private sectors. The connection between the principal components and the sectors' relative productivities (in relation to national averages) will also be examined and a primarily inverse relation with share of employment is determined (structural burden). In addition to the above, the present study takes an in depth look at the positions of two specific countries - Estonia and Korea - among the developed countries of the world. It appears that in some ways the two are similar but in others they are polar opposites.