IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ewc/wpaper/wp104.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Economy of North Korea: Implications for Denuclearization and Proliferation

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Haggard

    (University of California, San Diego)

  • Marcus Noland

    (East-West Center & Peterson Institute of International Economics)

Abstract

Despite North Korea's turn away from economic reform and the constraints of the second nuclear crisis, the country has in fact become more economically open. But it has emphasized closer economic relations with China and other trading partners that show little interest in political quid-pro-quos, let alone sanctions. Yet the U.S. can still exercise economic leverage by going aggressively after third-party financial intermediaries. This particular form of sanction does not require multilateral coordination, since foreign banking institutions that conduct significant business in the United States have a strong interest in avoiding institutions that the United States Treasury has identified as money laundering or proliferation concerns. There is some evidence that North Korea moderated its missile proliferation activities during periods when rapprochement with the United States, and to a lesser extent Japan, was a priority, but in the absence of such interest and as legitimate trade, investment, and aid dry up, the incentives to intensify proliferation activities increase. The internal organization of the North Korean economy has important implications for any policy seeking transformation via engagement. The economy is structured in such a way that outside economic ties are still largely monopolized by stateowned enterprises and other gatekeepers, such as the military. Under such circumstances, the precise design of engagement policies requires very close scrutiny. Even nominally commercial relations can be exploited if the North Korean counterparties believe that they are ultimately political in nature, subsidized and thus vulnerable to blackmail. If economic ties are truly commercial in nature, those choosing to trade and invest with North Korea do so at their own risk. Under these circumstances, private actors will make economic decisions fully factoring in political risk, and North Korea will bear the costs if it chooses to renege on commitments or fails to provide a supportive policy environment. Paper prepared for the conference on "North Korean Nuclear Politics: Constructing a New Northeast Asian Order in the 21st Century," University of Washington, June 4-5, 2009. We would like to thank the Smith Richardson, MacArthur, and Korea Foundations for financial support and Jennifer Lee for research assistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland, 2009. "The Political Economy of North Korea: Implications for Denuclearization and Proliferation," Economics Study Area Working Papers 104, East-West Center, Economics Study Area.
  • Handle: RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/ECONwp104.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Noland, Marcus & Haggard, Stephan, 2007. "Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform," MPRA Paper 92548, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus, 2009. "Famine in North Korea Redux?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 384-395, September.
    3. Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland, 2007. "North Korea's External Economic Relations," Working Paper Series WP07-7, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    4. Marcus Noland, 2008. "The (Non) Impact of UN Sanctions on North Korea," Working Paper Series WP08-12, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus, 2016. "Hard Target: Sanctions, Inducements, and the Case of North Korea," MPRA Paper 105812, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus, 2010. "Reform from below: Behavioral and institutional change in North Korea," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 133-152, February.
    3. Chang, Yoonok & Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus, 2009. "Exit polls: Refugee assessments of North Korea's transition," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 144-150, March.
    4. Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland, 2018. "Networks, Trust and Trade: The Microeconomics of China–North Korea Integration," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 277-299, September.
    5. Byung-Yeon Kim & Gerard Roland, 2011. "Are the Markets Afraid of Kim Jong-Il?," KIER Working Papers 789, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    6. Stephen Devereux, 2009. "Why does famine persist in Africa?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 1(1), pages 25-35, February.
    7. Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland, 2010. "The Winter of Their Discontent: Pyongyang Attacks the Market," Policy Briefs PB10-1, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    8. Noland, Marcus & Haggard, Stephan, 2009. "Repression and punishment in North Korea: survey evidence of prison camp experiences," MPRA Paper 17705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Cerami, Alfio, 2018. "The Night Lights of North Korea. Prosperity Shining and Public Policy Governance," MPRA Paper 87281, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 13 Jun 2018.
    10. Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland & Erik Weeks, 2008. "North Korea on the Precipice of Famine," Policy Briefs PB08-6, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    11. Cullen S. Hendrix, 2011. "Markets vs. Malthus: Food Security and the Global Economy," Policy Briefs PB11-12, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    12. Haggard, Stephan & Lee, Jennifer & Noland, Marcus, 2012. "Integration in the absence of institutions: China–North Korea cross-border exchange," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 130-145.
    13. Paul Hare, 2012. "North Korea: Building the Institutions to Raise Living Standards," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 487-509, September.
    14. Kim, Byung-Yeon & Kim, Suk Jin & Lee, Keun, 2007. "Assessing the economic performance of North Korea, 1954-1989: Estimates and growth accounting analysis," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 564-582, September.
    15. Haggard, Stephan & Noland, Marcus, 2009. "Famine in North Korea Redux?," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 384-395, September.
    16. Stephan Haggard & Marcus Noland, 2007. "North Korea's External Economic Relations," Working Paper Series WP07-7, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    17. Noland, Marcus & Haggard, Stephan, 2010. "Political attitudes under repression: evidence from North Korean refugees," MPRA Paper 21713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Shim, David, 2010. "How Signifying Practices Constitute Food (In)security: The Case of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," GIGA Working Papers 122, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    19. Yong‐Shik Lee, 2020. "New general theory of economic development: Innovative growth and distribution," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 402-423, May.
    20. Kimberly Ann Elliott, 2003. "Economic Leverage and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis," Policy Briefs PB03-03, Peterson Institute for International Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F - International Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brenda Higashimoto (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ewchius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.