He is a Professor of Economics at the Seoul National University, and the founding director of the Center for Economic Catch-up. He has been awarded the 2014 Schumpeter Prize for his monograph on Schumpeterian Analysis of Economic Catch-up by the International Schumpeter Society. He is also the President-Elect of this Society. He is currently a member of the Committee for Development Policy of UN, a co-editor of Research Policy, a member of the governing board of Globelics, and had also served as the President of the Asia-Pacific Innovation Network. He was a visiting scholar at the University of California at Davis, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Hitotsubashi University in Japan, Hannover University in Germany, and Punjabi University in India.