1980 Posts located
The financial panic of late 2008 and the global economic recession that followed has been the greatest economic shock since World War II. While North Asia was caught up in…
East Asia is an area where real economic activities are closely linked. The brisk trade in goods and services among East Asian countries shows a well-integrated East Asian economy. Most…
A common problem facing students of the economy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the shortage of available statistics. It is extremely challenging to procure DPRK data,…
In the wake of the fall of Lehman Brothers, in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 Korea was faced with its biggest economic challenge since…
On this week’s episode, we welcome back Victoria Kim, a researcher and multimedia journalist. When she last joined us in 2016, Victoria discussed her project “Lost and Found in Uzbekistan:…
The Trump Administration is once again considering using Section 232 to impose tariffs on imported goods based on a threat to national security. The President originally used this provision to…
On August 1, the remains of what are believed to be 55 American servicemen lost during the Korean War finally returned home, arriving in Hawaii to begin the long process…
Ghosts and goblins are everywhere in Korean folktales, causing havoc for people through their antics. Equally common are the shamans who act as intermediaries, helping offer solutions to life's supernatural…
On August 31, 2021, South Korea’s National Assembly approved the amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (전기통신사업법), which essentially imposes new restrictions and mechanisms of greater regulatory scrutiny over the operators of app markets (e.g., Apple’s ‘AppStore’ or Google’s ‘Play Store’). Hailed as the first successfully implemented measure against the giants operating global app markets,…
In the last two posts, we have provided data on the share of military personnel in the Politburo and analyzed in more detail the diversity of military backgrounds, some tied to the weapons program, but others linked more clearly to the military-industrial complex, technology and internal security. Here, we consider several intepretations of these developments,…
South Korea’s dominant position in the global market for auto manufacturing and chip fabrication are well known. Less well-known is the country’s increasingly expanding gaming industry. In 2019, South Korea’s gaming industry brought in USD 6.9 billion from abroad - approximately 10 times that of the country’s vaunted pop music industry. Now, Korea’s gaming companies are looking…
In a previous post, we provided data on the shifting composition of the Politburo, based on a classification of personnel into six different career paths: military, diplomatic, party, state, economic and provincial. We showed that since the failed Hanoi summit of 2018, the share of military personnel has returned to levels not seen since the…