The Logic of the Survival of North Korea

Why has North Korea been able to survive up to now, while other rogue states such as Afghanistan and Iraq have suffered military intervention by the USA? To solve this puzzle, we present a simple two‐level game model that takes into account strategic interdependence between intrastate and interstate wars. Using the two‐level game framework, we show that the ethnic homogeneity of North Korea helps defend itself from US armed intervention, whereas a rogue state with a relatively heterogeneous society is expected to experience international insecurity by providing the USA with an opportunity to find domestic allies that help it win an interstate war against the rogue state. As a policy implication, we discuss the possibility that the recent development of a market economy in North Korea might destabilize the peace between the USA and North Korea.     

Nation Branding for Survival in North Korea: The Arirang Festival and Nuclear Weapons Tests

The article problematises a popular view in nation branding literature that equates nation branding with states’ attendant advertising campaigns. Instead, this article adopts a broader perspective that nation branding can also operate as a policy aimed at enhancing the sense of ontological security among states and as a practice to strengthen the position of the ruling regime by targeting particular audiences within a broader ‘strategic narrative’. From this perspective, this article aims to shed new light on non-liberal capitalist countries’ – specifically North Korea’s – attempts at nation branding policies in terms of various nation branding strategies. In so doing, Clifford Geertz’s anthropological concept of ‘theatre state’ is introduced as an important metaphor to broaden the existing understanding of nation branding by highlighting the unique characteristics of North Korea’s policies of nation branding and nation building. It is argued that great national spectacles such as the Arirang Festival and military demonstrations provide North Korea with a useful platform for participating in the identity competition among other nation states, as well as in the fierce recognition game against the rest of the Korean national community. Obviously, these strategic performances have contributed to communicating with the outside world, deliberately seeking more respect from others, but have simultaneously operated as nation building processes. Therefore, this work concludes that such staged events are sophisticatedly designed to enhance North Korea’s complex interest of nation branding, and, more importantly, argues that techniques and practices of nation branding are neither historically new nor confined to Western liberal capitalist regimes.     

交换效率与经济体制的两难冲突

交换效率是有别于帕累托效率、市场信息效率的第三种效率概念。如果将政府的经济职能限于维护市场经济秩序和纠正市场失灵,那么判断政府干预经济与推动制度变迁的行为是否得当的标准是市场是否达到了交换有效。     

Economic Education in Korea: Current Status and Changes

The authors describe key aspects of precollege and undergraduate economic education in Korea. They show that precollege students seem to have low economics literacy due to problems with the curriculum and insufficient training of teachers. At the undergraduate level, they show that economics departments have more male students than female students and that the employment rate for economics majors is lower than for business majors. They hope to draw more of Korean economists' attention to research initiatives in economic education.     

“崩溃论”与中国经济

本从中国社会的现实出发，全面地分析了中国面临的诸多问题－－发展中国家问题与转轨经济问题，并从收入差距，城乡差距，地区差距，金融四个视角进行了总结，指出中国未来的发展方向－－“带着问题增长，在增长中解决问题。”     

North Korea: Sanctions,Engagement and Strategic Reorientation

This paper examines the roles that sanctions, and inducements might play in resolving the North Korea problem. It finds that while the “maximum pressure” narrative is plausible, the evidence to substantiate it is thin. Likewise, the North Korean regime is aware of the potentially constraining (or even destabilizing) political implications of cross‐border economic integration and has acted to structure engagement in ways to blunt its transformative impact. Maximizing the transformative possibilities of engagement will require conscious planning by North Korea's partners. Multilateral guidelines and voluntary codes on corporate conduct could be used to anchor this process, but they will only be effective if there is greater political commitment to such norms than has been witnessed to date. Without such commitments, engagement risks enabling North Korea's doctrine of the parallel development of the economy and weapons of mass destruction.     

经济自由主义理论：困境及其发展

经济自由主义理论包括三大发展阶段：神学阶段、形而上学阶段和实证阶段。斯密的“看不见的手”原理构成了经济自由主义神学阶段的理论核心,但是“看不见的手”只是一个从自然法中引申出来的假说。如何为这一假说提供一致的逻辑理论基础,促进了经济自由主义理论向形而上学阶段发展。福利经济学两大定理证明了“看不见的手”的合理性,标志着经济自由主义理论进入了形而上学阶段,但其假设前提的理想性决定了无法应付各种现实和理论发展的冲击。科斯定理和新制度经济学的出现为经济自由主义应付这些理论和现实的冲击提供了理论基础,标志着经济自由主义进入了实证阶段。     

Gender Inequality and Economic Growth in Korea

Calibrating an endogenous‐growth model to Korean data, we analyse the impact of gender inequality in Korea on long‐term economic growth. We find that gender equality policies that lower discrimination in the labour market or that increase the time spent by a father on childrearing can contribute positively to female labour market participation and per capita income growth. The simulation results show that when the disparities between men and women at home and in the labour market are completely removed, the female labour force participation rate increases from 54.4 to 67.5%, and the growth rate in per capita income rises from 3.6 to 4.1% on average over a generation.     

从"囚徒困境"看大都市圈经济整合

大都市圈经济整合是大都市圈发展的关键环节,是大都市圈功能的具体反映.通过对大都市圈经济整合中的"囚徒困境"分析,得出了中国大都市圈经济整合中所产生的"囚徒困境"是制度缺陷造成的.因此,破解"囚徒困境"的方法就是寻求制度创新.     

中国经济增长中的高货币化困境及其纠偏

改革开放以来,我国经济增长过程伴随着高货币化,且呈现出逐年上升的趋势。该文文献回顾发现,与政府相关的投资行为在其中扮演着重要的角色。数值模拟分析表明,政府主导下的投资驱动型增长模式会导致债务增加、杠杆水平上升和投资效率下滑,市场主导下的投资驱动型增长模式则并不必然如此。实证研究发现,M2/GDP扩张与增量资本产出率(ICOR)正向相关,与资本回报率(ROIR)负向相关,且M2/GDP每增加1%,资本回报率(ROIR)约下降0.25%。因此,尽管政府驱动型投资模式在周期性衰退中有其存在的必要性,但随着债务风险的累积和资本效率的持续递减,投资主体到了转换的关键时期,这将有助于我国经济发展模式的转变。     

中、韩、朝地区经济合作研究

中国已成为朝鲜半岛最重要的经济合作国之一 ,在地区经济合作中有着良好基础和条件。本文分析中、韩、朝三国的双边贸易与投资的基本情况及特点 ,提出进一步实现该地区紧密的经济合作关系的可行性及基本构想。     

Openness and Growth in North Korea: Evidence from Time–Series Data

New growth theories suggest that an economy's increased openness raises domestic productivity, and hence must have a positive effect on the living standards of a nation. The North Korean economy, isolated from world trade for several decades and its economy devastated, provides a test for this implied causality. The possibility that the ultimate source of declining real gross national product since 1974 is a decrease in trade liberalization of the North Korean economy cannot be rejected. The results are more definitive when the sample is split into two subperiods, pre–1974 and post–1974. These findings are generally consistent with the conventional model in which free trade stimulates economic growth.     

Between Calm and Passion: The Cooling-Off Period and Divorce Decisions in Korea

Research in behavioral economics suggests that a cooling-off period can address decision-making errors caused by projection bias, which drives people to make the wrong prediction when affected by an immediate emotional state. Using the unique, natural experiment of a mandated divorce cooling-off period in Korea, a difference-in-differences (DD) estimation of the impact of such a cooling-off period on divorce outcomes shows that the cooling-off period increases filing cancellation and reduces finalized divorce rates without any effect on initial divorce filing rates. Estimates indicate that the number of divorces finalized decreases by approximately 9 percent, and that this effect is consistent over the long run. Research also shows that couples who have undergone a prior separation period or have conclusive causes to divorce do not respond to the cooling-off period, suggesting that emotional state at the time of decision is the driving force of observed dynamic inconsistency.     

Economic effects of positive credit information sharing: the case of Korea

In many countries, in addition to negative credit information such as loan default and arrears, positive credit information is also exchanged on a voluntary and reciprocal basis. Employing optimal credit decision models of profit maximizing banks, and utilizing a unique dataset of 2?million consumer loan obligors in Korea, we investigate the economic effects of sharing positive credit information in addition to negative credit information already exchanged. We find that the discriminatory power of the credit scoring model improves significantly. We proceed to investigate the economic effects of the information gap in a competitive credit market by assuming two representative banks that differ only in the level of credit information sharing. The bank that utilizes negative information only suffers from deterioration of the borrower pool and reduced profit, as high credit risk borrowers are more concentrated on this bank due to underpricing of risks. Our finding suggests that banks have incentives to voluntarily participate in the positive information sharing mechanism, since even a small difference in discriminatory power stemming from the information gap may lead to a significant fall in profitability as the distribution of borrower quality changes endogenously due to adverse selection problems.     

Potential economic reforms in North Korea: a dynamic general equilibrium model

We use a dynamic general equilibrium model to examine hypothetical market reforms in North Korea. We model partial reform, in which producers choose capital allocations across sectors, with the government still fixing total capital. We also consider two full market reform scenarios. In one, public infrastructure investment remains unchanged, while, in the other, it increases substantially. In all scenarios, we assume a closed economy and a constant military size. Our simulations show little hope for the North Korean economy without boosting infrastructure. Although all of the reforms raise consumption, only significant increases in infrastructure investment bring positive economic growth.