Economic integration between North and South Korea occurs through three modalities: traditional arm's-length trade and investment, processing on commission (POC) trade, and operations within the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC). In order, these three modalities are characterized by decreasing...

This paper uses survey data to examine the experience of women in North Korea’s economic transition. Women have been shed from state-affiliated employment and thrust into a market environment characterized by weak institutions and corruption. More than one-third of men indicate that...

Theory tells us that weak rule of law and institutions deter cross-border integration, deter investment relative to trade, and inhibit trade finance. Drawing on a survey of more than 300 Chinese enterprises that are doing or have done business in North Korea, we consider how informal...

Despite its nuclear capability, in certain respects North Korea resembles a failed state sitting uneasily atop a shifting internal foundation. This instability is due in part to the devastating famine of the 1990s and the state's inability to fulfill the economic obligations that it had assumed,...

Results from a survey of more than 1300 North Korean refugees in China provide insight into changing economic conditions in North Korea. There is modest evidence of slightly more positive assessments among those who exited the country following the initiation of reforms in 2002. Education breeds...

The state is often conceptualized as playing an enabling role for economic development, providing public goods, such as the legal protection of property rights, with the political economy of reform conceived in terms of bargaining among elites or special interest groups. We document a case which...

In the 1990s, 600,000 to 1 million North Koreans, or about 3-5 percent of the pre-crisis population perished in one of the worst famines of the 20th century. North Korea is once again poised on the brink of famine. Although the renewed provision of aid is likely to avert a disaster on the scale...