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...

It was always maintained by Soviet theorists that the distinguishing feature of the Soviet socialist or Communist economy would be centralized economic planning. This was their sine qua non and all discussions over the Soviet economic model revolved around two questions: what should be the...

The Soviet Union was able to develop a large military-industrial complex and become the world’s second superpower despite the small size of its malfunctioning planned economy because defence was given high priority status and special planning, rationing and administrative mechanism were...

Departmental statistics of growth in production in the defense sector is highly distorted by liberalization of requirements to fulfillment of the state defense order on the part of the Ministry of Defense and the Military Industrial Commission. Despite the international sanctions, in 2015 the...