Factor markets: Who really owns the land, labor and capital in North Korea?
Actual control and right to buy and sell are increasingly determined by access to funds, not by state fiat
Much of the focus on North Korea’s markets is largely centered around its wholesale and retail markets — the jangmadang. Retail markets are the most easily identifiable and visible manifestation of markets in a country like North Korea without mature marketplaces of other sorts.
The stalls and traders that comprise the country’s jangmadang form a large part of the retail and wholesale distribution system, but market activity in North Korea goes beyond consumer goods, food, industrial inputs and raw materials.
The foundational part of a market economy is arguably the markets for production factors
- 01Timeline: From North Korea’s ‘military action plan’ to missiles and summits
- 02State media review: North Korea slams South Korea for joining NATO summit
- 03Why US sanctions on North Korea’s main airport would do more harm than good
- 04North Korean studio secretly animated US-backed Russian film
- 05Japan dangerously out of step on North Korea as it flirts with rearmament
- 06State media review: Pro-DPRK media says tensions may cause ‘unpredictable event’
- 07North Korea’s largest-ever banknote signals changes underfoot in monetary system
- 08North Korea careens from floods to drought, straining an already fragile system