A year ago, the very nice people at the Legatum Institute invited me to join their summer program, a week long retreat in Italy. It was pretty amazing, talking about the world and the rise and fall of nations, and grandiose things like that with people like Vali Nasr, John Hale, Robert Kagan, Anne Applebaum, Robert Shafer, and Lucie Spickova (and many, many more).

But the real focus of the Legatum Institute isn’t randomly holding events in Italy. The institute is more about sponsoring research and hosting programs for advancing freedom and prosperity around the world. Probably their signature project is the annual Prosperity Index, which tries to quantify the idea of prosperity and rank all the countries around the world.

Which is why I am so happy to announce that I have just made a small contribution to Legatum’s Prosperity project — a country report on South Korea, called “Ready for Prime Time.” My report focuses on Korean culture and soft power and how its successes has helped reshape Korea, making it a more confident and prosperous nation.

It’s pretty cool to be able to add my name to the Legatum’s list of contributors. Past reports have been written by people like James Robinson (who co-wrote Why Nations Fail with Daron Acemoglu) — his essay on Colombia, “The Orangutan in a Tuxedo,” was excellent.

I should add a thanks to everyone at Legatum, for inviting me to the first event and for asking me to write this new report. And to Peter Passell, my editor, who always makes my writing 137 percent better. And an extra thanks goes to Jeff Gedmin, the president of the institute, for being behind it all.