RESEARCH PROJECTS
Political Tracking:
North Korea:
- U.S. Strategy Toward North Korea
- China-NK Disaster Response
- DPRK Statistics Project
- North Korea - Allied Relations
South Korea:
Project Report: DPRK Economic Statistics Project (March 2009)
Dr. Mika Marumoto, development consultant
Analysts and policymakers are understandably concerned about the availability and reliability of North Korean economic and social statistics data, and face serious challenges to the validity of their analysis, arguments and policymaking. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Economic Statistics Project (April – December 2008) was organized to directly address issues surrounding DPRK statistics. Dr. Mika Marumoto conducted an overall assessment of available databases and identified the most salient DPRK economic and social statistics available in the public domain. She also carried out case studies on different categories of North Korean data such as population data, gross domestic product estimates and trade data, in order to help data users make more sound judgments in their use and interpretation of available DPRK statistics.
Initiated by the DPRK Economic Forum, a program at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, the statistics project was funded by the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy (KDIS) and administered by the U.S.-Korea Institute. Views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect those of KDIS or the U.S.-Korea Institute, and any errors and omissions are solely the author's own. Permissions for citations and/or questions should be sent directly to Dr. Mika Marumoto at marumotomika@hotmail.com.
Download the full text: 
Project Report: DPRK Economic Statistics Project
Download report sections:
- Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Part 1: Overall Assessment of North Korea Economic Statistics
- Part 2: Comparative Assessment of North Korea Datasets - Case Studies
- Part 3: Conclusions and Recommendations
Recommended citation: Mika Marumoto, Project Report: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Economic Statistics Project (April-December 2008), Presented to Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management and the DPRK Economic Forum, U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University-School of Advanced International Studies. March 2009.
Flood Across the Border: China’s Disaster Relief Operations and Potential Response to a North Korean Refugee Crisis
Drew Thompson, Director of China Studies and Starr Senior Fellow, The Nixon Center
Dr. Carla Freeman, Associate Director, Chinese Studies at Johns Hopkins-SAIS
This report considers the planning, capacities and mechanisms for addressing natural disasters and domestic crises in the People’s Republic of China and the implications for Chinese management of a potential crisis involving a rapid and unexpected increase in the volume of North Korean refugees fleeing to Chinese territory. Its focus is on structures and organizations in Jilin Province and its subordinate Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.
Executive Summary (5 pages)
Download the Report: Flood Across the Border (4.1.09; 80 pages)
This report is co-funded through The Nixon Center, a leading foreign policy research institute founded by President Richard Nixon in 1994.
The Changing Nature of Foreign Direct Investment in Korea: Challenges to Economic Policy
Dr. Arthur Alexander, former president of the Japan Economic Institute and a noted economist
Foreign direct investment (FDI), defined as sufficient company ownership that provides some degree of managerial control, improves a nation’s productivity and economic growth. Until the 1997 East Asia financial crisis, the Korean government exercised a de facto policy of discouraging inward FDI. However, as part of its acceptance of IMF support to resolve the crisis, the government opened the economy to foreign ownership of domestic business. In the years after the crisis, foreign investment surged. However, despite these changes, Korea still lags other developed and developing countries as a target for FDI. We are investigating the changing nature of FDI into the country, the policy and political responses, and the concerns in the country that may induce a cautious approach by administrators.
In order to understand better the changing nature of Korean inward FDI, we are assembling data broken down by industry, financing method, and type of investor. We will analyze the policy and regulatory implications by considering the domestic industries and companies that may face greater competition; and the government agencies that will be involved together with their regulatory and organizational imperatives. New patterns of FDI create the potential for counterattacks by negatively affected parties. We shall attempt to predict such barriers in advance to alert policymakers and others about possible future problems. We will attempt to understand how the changing nature of FDI into Korea may affect future economic outcomes in ways that may differ from past influences.
The first report examines the long-term economic perspective of FDI in Korea: Foreign Direct Investment in Korea: Trends, Implications, Obstacles.
The second report takes an in-depth look at the trends of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), Korea's leading source of FDI: Mergers and Acquisitions in Korea: The Leading Edge of Foreign Direct Investment.
The third report outlines key economic policy implications of Korea's FDI and M&A trends: Policy Implications of Korea’s Low-Intensity Foreign Direct Investment.
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Learning Mistrust: North Korea and Its Allies, 1945-1991
Dr. Kathryn Weathersby, USKI Visiting Scholar
In their efforts to address the political, economic, and military challenges posed by North Korea, the other states of the region are stymied by a lack of common ground with Pyongyang and of confidence that the North Koreans will play by shared rules. While North Korea’s self-imposed isolation and secretiveness place it in a category by itself, for the bulk of its history—from the inception of communist rule in 1945 through the end of the Soviet era in 1991—the DPRK was in fact firmly embedded in the extensive and powerful set of multilateral economic and security structures of the communist world. Because these alliance relationships involved shared commitment to common goals and direct tutelage by the powerful leaders of the communist world, they constituted the school in which the DPRK leadership learned how to protect the country’s interests in the midst of a hostile and constantly changing environment. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of North Korea’s former allies, Dr. Weathersby’s book will analyze the evolution of the DPRK’s alliance relationships during the Soviet era. It will argue that for Pyongyang these essential relationships were experiences of betrayal and threat combined with profound and unwelcomed dependence. Even as North Korea adjusts to radically altered circumstances, the perceptions created by this troubled history will necessarily continue to shape the assumptions it brings to relations with other countries. Understanding these perceptions is thus the necessary first step toward comprehending the reasoning that drives North Korean actions.