If North Korea's economic transformation has been largely informal and contested at the level of the state, to what extent is North Korea's economic transformation reflected in North Korean economic research? In this article, we analyze a dataset of North Korean domestic journal articles on...

Driven by both political camps in Seoul, relations between South Korea and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have deepened significantly since their initiation in 2005. While this intensified relationship was shaped to a large extent by geopolitical developments and increasing...

Some economies are "black holes" where reliable data is scarce due to government control, low capacity, or conflict. Despite these challenges, researchers have found ways to gather useful information. This paper draws on the literature on North Korea to review six key methods: satellite imagery,...

Sanctions have a long history dating several centuries. There has been a significant increase of sanctions after World War II. Those against Iran and Russia are at present in focus for the discussion of sanctions, but also other countries as Cuba and North Korea are sanctioned. There are several...

While heated debates in Europe have focused on how to respond if Donald J. Trump is re-elected to the White House, discussions in Australia, Japan, and South Korea reveal a greater sense of confidence in Washington's commitments. The fear that the United States would withdraw its nuclear...

At least since Russia deployed North Korean artillery and ballistic missiles against Ukraine, it is obvious that Pyongyang fuels conflicts far beyond North-East Asia. Yet, the indirect threats that North Korea poses to Europe's security and stability have developed a new quality: Pyongyang is...

While heated debates in Europe have focused on how to respond if Donald J. Trump is re-elected to the White House, discussions in Australia, Japan, and South Korea reveal a greater sense of confidence in Washington's commitments. The fear that the United States would withdraw its nuclear...

Sanctions have a long history dating several centuries. There has been a significant increase of sanctions after World War II. Those against Iran and Russia are at present in focus for the discussion of sanctions, but also other countries as Cuba and North Korea are sanctioned. There are several...

South Korea has been late to embrace the concept of the Indo-Pacific. Its strategic approach developed from initial neglect to mere tactic acknowledgment and careful engagement under the Moon administration (2017-2022), to the now clear support for a distinct Indo-Pacific strategy under the Yoon...

This paper investigates the economic costs of the recent United Nations sanctions on North Korea. Exploiting a novel data set on North Korean firms, we construct measures of regional exposure to export and intermediate input sanctions and show that trade sanctions cause sharp declines in local...

(Korean Abstract) 본 연구는 김정은 위원장 집권 10년을 정권 승계기(2011년 12월~2012년), 집권 1기(2013~17년), 집권 2기 (2018~21년)로 구분하여 각 집권 시기별로 북한이 추진하였던 대외정책의 특징을 규명하고, 이를 바탕으로...

Could North Korea (officially, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) actually become Northeast Asia’s next big free market economy? At first blush, economic optimism about the Hermit Kingdom seems incredibly misplaced. North Korea is one of the most repressive countries in the world;...

This paper examines the possibilities for, and obstacles to, the reunification of North and South Korea based on the experiences of the reunifications of Italy, the United States and Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Common elements of these reunifications include a slow convergence of...

We focused on multilateral cooperation and aid to North Korea. While it is true that North Korea and the international community both respectively have a certain desire for multilateral cooperation, we evaluate that due to the disagreements stemming from differing perspectives, correspondence,...

This paper empirically examines the relationship between inter-Korean trade and inter-Korean relations over the past three decades. It asks two questions: (1) Does inter-Korean trade contribute to improved interKorean relations and peace on the Korean Peninsula? (2) Does improved inter-Korean...

South Korea has been late to embrace the concept of the Indo-Pacific. Its strategic approach developed from initial neglect to mere tactic acknowledgment and careful engagement under the Moon administration (2017–2022), to the now clear support for a distinct Indo-Pacific strategy under the...

This study examines how the health of North Korean refugees affect the speed of their integration into the South Korean society. Previous studies, mostly of refugees in Europe and North America, have documented that refugees’ poor health delays their integration into host countries. We extend...

The effect of China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) on the economic growth of the Korean Peninsula has seldom been examined. Therefore, this paper explores the effect of Chinese FDI on economic growth in the Korean Peninsula from 2003 to 2017. Using an autoregressive distribution lag...

This paper quantitatively analyzes the current status of North Korean consumer payment instruments through a questionnaire survey of 292 North Korean defectors. In the 2010s, it was found that the payment experience ratio of domestic currency cash and grain decreased, while the payment...

This paper investigates the economic costs of the recent United Nations sanctions on North Korea. Exploiting a novel data set on North Korean firms, we construct measures of regional exposure to export and intermediate input sanctions and show that trade sanctions cause sharp declines in local...

Since the first provision of international food assistance in the mid-1990s, humanitarian aid to North Korea has been a constant source of scrutiny and debate. It was not only a major contributing factor to ending the devastating famine in the mid-to-late 1990s, but it has continuously helped...

Particulate matter (PM) is a major, clinically important air pollutant. A large portion of emitted PM crosses borders, damaging health outside of its originating jurisdiction, but due in part to technical obstacles these pollutant flows remain unregulated. Proposed attribution approaches assume...

What are the characteristics of President Moon Jae-in's policy toward North Korea, and what lessons can be drawn for the future? More than 70 years have passed since the establishment of the two republics in 1948, during which continuous attempts have been made to achieve reconciliation, peace,...

Through its "comfort women" framework, the World War II Japanese military extended its licensing regime for domestic prostitution to the brothels next to its overseas bases. That regime imposed strenuous health standards, which the military needed to control the venereal disease that had...

Over the past three decades, North Korea has experienced a period of economic change, most notably in the development of the market. North Korea maintains that it operates a tightly controlled planned economy, the elements of which are poorly understood by the international community. Currently,...

This paper examines various channels and issues for foreign firms to invest in inter-Korean economic cooperation with the assumption that inter-Korean economic cooperation can be resumed after sanctions against North Korea have been lifted, and the same treatment is applied to foreign firms....

North Korea and China’s relations have, from time to time, been addressed by the international media as “symbolic brothers,” and often come into the academic discussion with the context of the “Korean War” (1950-1953). It has been captured in the larger discussion, North Korea is a...

North Korea is one of the most restrictive countries in terms of data accessibility, especially at the regional level. This research assesses the regional economy in North Korea using the nighttime light data. It estimates GRDP per capita at the county level in 2012-2020, the Kim Jong-Un era,...

Using multinomial logistic regressions, this study examines whether human capital accumulated in North Korea (NK) or South Korea (SK) is associated with decreases in welfare receipt among North Korean Defectors (NKDs) in SK. Human capital is measured by (1) (higher) education in NK or SK, (2)...

North Korea is a complex humanitarian emergency with food insecurity at its core. As of August 2022, both quantity and price data point to a deteriorating situation, made worse by the regime's self-isolating response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Food availability has likely...

What are the characteristics of President Moon Jae-in's policy toward North Korea, and what lessons can be drawn for the future? More than 70 years have passed since the establishment of the two republics in 1948, during which continuous attempts have been made to achieve reconciliation, peace,...

This article investigates two accounts of political propaganda in autocratic regimes. One argues that propaganda’s content does not matter substantively and that propaganda is mostly a signal of the regime’s overwhelming power over citizens. A second argues that propaganda is substantively...

A significant part of economic coercion deployed by the US, EU and the UN targets authoritarian regimes' ruling elites, and aims to promote liberalization by encouraging defections and discouraging repression. We develop a model to study the effects of such measures. The ruler chooses how much...

The Ukrainian crisis and Russia-U.S. conflict can provide important policy implications for South Korea. This is especially true in that the external environments of Ukraine and the Korean Peninsula, which are located between great powers, share many similarities. In addition, and more...

The United Nations Security Council adopted eight resolutions from 2012 to 2019, in condemning threatening actions on the part of North Korea, such as conducting ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons tests. I examine the efficacy of sanctions against North Korea using satellite nighttime lights...

In the study of the North Korean economy, industrial and business activities still remain uncharted territory. They are the most basic components of an economy, yet the scarcity of information makes those in North Korea almost impossible to understand from the outside world. Today, the general...

This paper investigates the economic costs of the recent United Nations sanctions on North Korea. Exploiting a novel data set on North Korean firms, we construct measures of regional exposure to export and intermediate input sanctions and show that they cause sharp declines in local nighttime...

North Korean trade networks have adapted to international sanctions through a variety of strategies to solve the problem of operating in a hostile environment at both the global level, and at the local level. At the global level, they have engaged in obfuscation of the nature of trade and...