KEI Contributor – William Brown

This chapter takes the perspective of North Korea’s leadership as it confronts difficult economic problems in the remaining months of 2018. The major current and potential issues are listed and…

Much is made in Western circles of North Korea’s economic dependence on China amid questions of whether and how much leverage this gives Beijing. In an end game, however, Pyongyang…

North Korea badly needs change but whether that change can and should be induced or forced from the outside is open to question. This paper proceeds from the perspective that…

The U.S. and South Korean economies continued to surprise forecasters in the third quarter with much better-than-expected growth. South Korea’s GDP was very strong, growing at about a 5 percent seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) based on its revised estimate. Meanwhile, U.S. growth, not yet officially calculated due to the federal government shutdown delaying the…

Kim Jong Un is projecting confidence abroad, appearing alongside Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and flaunting his nuclear arsenal, but his regime faces mounting economic turmoil at home. The North Korean won has reportedly lost more than half its value in a year, inflation is surging, and new laws are struggling to force an increasingly…

The U.S. and South Korean economies rebounded faster than expected in the second quarter this year, with annualized rates rising 3 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively. Growth remains steady despite widespread predictions of recessions in both countries, driven in part by political changes in Korea and large tariff announcements in the United States. Forecasts for…

The United States and South Korea scored nearly identical GDP results in the first quarter of 2025 according to newly updated but still preliminary data. Both showed slightly negative change from the fourth quarter of 2024; the United States declining at a negative 0.2 percent rate and South Korea at a negative 0.8 percent rate,…