Growth and Geography of Markets in North Korea New Evidence from Satellite Imagery - Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein October 2015

For instance, in 2009-2010, when the government created policies aimed at suppressing market activities, according to the dataset no corresponding decreases in aggregate market size are visible on satellite imagery.1 The exception is Pyongsong, where the closure of the wholesale market in 2010 made the city’s aggregate market size decrease by 70 percent. [...] US-KOREA INSTITUTE AT SAIS | 9 GROWTH AND GEOGRAPHY OF MARKETS IN NORTH KOREA INTRODUCTION Markets have grown to become an integral part of the North Korean economy ever since the famine of the 1990s and the breakdown of the planned economy.2 Across the country, most cities have several of these markets, and North Koreans are dependent on them for a significant part of their food consumption. [...] Taken together, the reconstruction and apparent update of one of Sariwon’s markets and the drop in street market space suggest that street market trade has been further included in the formalized economy throughout the years. [...] • All cities with the largest aggregate market size per capita can be found in the western part of the country, while cities in the east are closer to the average size for the country. [...] The figures encompass only formalized markets, and it may well be that market activity in the northern part of the country has a more unofficial character than in the south, and that the activity takes place in people’s homes and the like to a higher degree than in the south.