North Korean Economy Watch

Yesterday’s post on accountability and South Korean aid to the North got me thinking about game theory again.

The South Korean Ministry of Unification has a dominant strategy to lend/give/invest in North Korea for ostensibly two reasons: 1. If the MoU does not, their raison d’etre goes away.  2. South Korea will ultimately see a payoff if a development strategy works in the DPRK.

Contracting with North Korea, however, is essentially a prisoner’s dilemma (see chart above), and North Korea has the ability to cooperate or defect.  However, the North Koreans have rational expectations, so they know the Ministry of Unification has a dominant strategy to cooperate.

Therefore the Nash equilibrium is for the South to keep cooperating and for the North to keep defecting.  In a repeated game, cooperation evolves over time as trust develops and defection decreases.  Because of South Korea’s dominant strategy,however, the North never has an incentive to cooperate–so we end up with an “anti-folk theorum” where defection is the only incentive compatible outcome over time.

Addendum: The game could be radically different for private investors, however, who are in a more credible position to say “no”–leading to defect/defect moves (because South Korean investors are not as politically constrained and can recognize sunk costs).  These moves result in neither gains nor losses for either side, however, because both sides have the ability to bargain, cooperation that is mutually beneficial can evolve over time as it should.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under International Aid, South Korea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.