In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. The socialist food distribution system collapsed primarily because of a misguided push for self-reliance, but was compounded by the regime's failure to formulate a quick response-including the blocking of desperately needed humanitarian relief. As households, enterprises, local party organs, and military units tried to cope with the economic collapse, a grassroots process of marketization took root. However, rather than embracing these changes, the North Korean regime opted for tentative economic reforms with ambiguous benefits and a self-destructive foreign policy. As a result, a chronic food shortage continues to plague North Korea today. In their carefully researched book, Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland present the most comprehensive and penetrating account of the famine to date, examining not only the origins and aftermath of the crisis but also the regime's response to outside aid and the effect of its current policies on the country's economic future. Their study begins by considering the root causes of the famine, weighing the effects of the decline in the availability of food against its poor distribution. Then it takes a close look at the aid effort, addressing the difficulty of monitoring assistance within the country, and concludes with an analysis of current economic reforms and strategies of engagement. North Korea's famine exemplified the depredations that can arise from tyrannical rule and the dilemmas such regimes pose for the humanitarian community, as well as the obstacles inherent in achieving economic and political reform. To reveal the state's culpability in this tragic event is a vital project of historical recovery, one that is especially critical in light of our current engagement with the "North Korean question."

Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform

Business & Money

Haggard, Stephan

Noland, Marcus

Economics

Columbia University Press

Book by Balassa, Bela, Noland, Marcus

Japan in the World Economy

Balassa, Bela

Peterson Institute for International Economics

Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future

Peterson Inst for Intl Economics

Reconcilable Differences?: United States-Japan Economic Conflict

Bergsten, C. Fred

The Asian financial crisis has precipitated significant changes in real exchange rates in the region that will substantially alter the volume and pattern of international trade. The crisis countries will increase their exports and, especially, reduce their imports. Japan, China, and the other non-crisis countries will experience more complex changes. The trade balances of the United States and Western Europe will deteriorate by about $40-50 billion as a result of the currency movements in Asia. This study, newly updated in August 1999, quantifies the impact of the currency changes on the individual countries in Asia, on the United States, on Europe and on other regions on a sector-by-sector basis. It analyzes the additional impact that might occur if China, thus far a relative bystander in the crisis, were to devalue its currency as well. It then examines potential trade policy responses to these developments including the risk of an upsurge in protectionist pressure in the United States.

Global Economic Effects of the Asian Currency Devaluations (Policy Analyses in International Economics)

Robinson, Sherman

Liu, Li-Gang

Wang, Zhi

On the Korean peninsula one of the greatest success stories of the postwar era confronts a famine-ridden―and possibly nuclear-armed―totalitarian state. The stakes are extraordinarily high for both North and South Korea and for countries such as the United States that have a direct stake in these affairs. This study, the most comprehensive volume to date on the subject, examines the current situation in the two Koreas in terms of three major crises: the nuclear confrontation between the United States and North Korea, the North Korean famine, and the South Korean financial crisis. The future of the peninsula is then explored under three alternative scenarios: successful reform in North Korea, collapse and absorption (as happened in Germany), and "muddling through" in which North Korea, supported by foreign powers, makes ad hoc, regime-preserving reforms that fall short of fundamental transformation.

Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas

For more than three decades, the United States has conducted a unique Japan-specific economic policy. This policy was motivated by Japan's economic size and dynamism, fears that a unique "Japanese model of capitalism" enabled it to compete unfairly and threaten American prosperity during a period of prolonged US economic difficulties, and that the United States had unique capabilities to induce policy change in Japan due to its provision of security guarantees. No More Bashing argues that these assessments are mistaken and that the United States should abandon its Japan-specific policy. Japan's declining relative importance in the world economy, the waning distinctiveness of its economic institutions, the failure of most recent US initiatives toward Japan, and the emergence of strengthened international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, all underscore the advisability of formulating new approaches to bilateral relations rooted more firmly in multilateral institutions. This volume analyzes the outlook for the Japanese and US economies; their trade and financial relationships, including their trade negotiations over the past decade; the implications of new regional developments, most notably the rise of China and proposals for East Asian economic cooperation; and the roles of the United States and Japan in the provision of international public goods such as development assistance, environmental protection, and international security. It emphasizes that their trade agenda is increasingly moving beyond traditional border impediments toward the more politically sensitive issues of internal regulation and deregulation, such as competition policy. The authors propose a series of new initiatives to address these challenges and strengthen the multilateral system.

No More Bashing: Building a New Japan-United States Economic Relationship

Ito, Takatoshi

Globalization reigns supreme as a description of recent economic transformation―and it carries many meanings. In the policy realm, the orthodox terms of engagement have been enshrined in the "Washington consensus." But disappointing results in Latin America and transitional economies―plus the Asian financial crisis―have shaken the faith in Washington and elsewhere. One response has been to hark back to the more statist policies that the consensus marginalized. In this regard, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan are promoted as the poster nations that have derived great benefits from increasing integration with the international economy, without surrendering national autonomy in the economic or cultural spheres, effectively beating the West at its own game. The fundamental questions addressed in this monograph are whether industrial policy was indeed a major source of growth in these three economies, and if so, can it be replicated under current institutional arrangements, and if so, is it worth replicating, or, would developing countries today be better off embracing the suitably refined orthodoxy?

Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization: Lessons from Asia (Policy Analyses in International Economics)

Pack, Howard

Today's North Korean regime embodies elements of both communism and Confucian dynasty, is sovereign with respect to only part of the divided Korean nation, is vulnerable to pressure from external powers, and confronts incipient internal demands for change, yielding an unusually broad set of possible transition paths and successor regimes. Such paths range from maintenance of the status quo to evolution, probably toward a more conventional form of military authoritarianism, to revolutionary upheaval, the latter in all likelihood implying the North's collapse and its absorption into the rival Southern state. This policy analysis quantitatively analyzes the probability of regime change and examines the character of possible successor regimes and the implications of these profoundly different trajectories for South Korea.

Korea after Kim Jong-Il (Policy Analyses in International Economics)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Noland, Marcus. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Noland, Marcus

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Noland, Marcus. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform

Japan in the World Economy

Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future

Reconcilable Differences?: United States-Japan Economic Conflict

Pacific Basin Developing Countries: Prospects for the Future

Global Economic Effects of the Asian Currency Devaluations (Policy Analyses in International Economics)

Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas

No More Bashing: Building a New Japan-United States Economic Relationship

Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization: Lessons from Asia (Policy Analyses in International Economics)

Korea after Kim Jong-Il (Policy Analyses in International Economics)