The North Korean economy has been a statistical black hole for decades but is undergoing substantial transformations. Rapid post-war industrialisation was not sustained beyond the mid-1960s and South Korea’s economy far outpaced North Korea’s during the next three decades, during which trend...

"This volume examines failed attempts at modernizing the communist economy by means of optimal planning. It traces the rise and fall of the concept in Eastern Europe and China, explaining why the mission of optimization was doomed to fail and why it may nevertheless be relaunched today."

Part 1: Microeconomic Environment -- Chapter 1: The Roles and Responsibilities of Local Government -- Chapter 2: Finance, Taxation and Government Behavior -- Chapter 3: Government Investment, Financing and Debt -- Chapter 4: Government and Industrialization -- Part 2: Macroeconomic Consequences...

The Great Leap Forward disaster, characterized by a collapse in grain production and a widespread famine in China between 1959 and 1961, is found attributable to a systemic failure in central planning. Wishfully expecting a great leap in agricultural productivity from collectivization, the...