Economic Reform

Putting Statistics to the May 30th Measure

By | May 20, 2015

Interpreting economic data in and about North Korea is tricky; individual data points can balloon out of control. Christopher Green looks at the debate over North Korean economic growth and what really happened on May 30.

Yongusil 67: Footprints of the Dead and the Utility of Returns: Recent Works from the KEI Academic Paper Series

By | April 23, 2015

This Yongusil recounts the footsteps of Sino-NK contributors into Washington, DC, and the august academic paper and seminar series of the Korean Economic Institute.

Command and Conquer: The Co-option of Market Forces in the DPRK

By | December 31, 2014

Marketization in North Korea does more to maintain the regime than undermine it, argues Park Hyeong-jung of KINU. In the latest in a series of review essays covering key elements of contemporary North Korean economic history, Christopher Green reviews Park’s “Towards a Political Analysis of Markets in North Korea.”

Boondoggle on the Yalu: China’s Useless New Bridge to North Korea

By | November 03, 2014

A huge new piece of bilateral infrastructure on the Sino-North Korean frontier is to remain unopened for the foreseeable future. Sino-NK provides Chinese context to the news.

And the Show Goes On: How the State Survived Marketization

By | September 01, 2014

In post-famine North Korea, the spread of markets has created a dilemma for the state. While markets are sources of revenue, they also threaten to state’s survival. How has the state responded? In the third installment in a series of reviews, Peter Ward looks at Yang Mun-su’s work on the state’s response to marketization.