Why the market and state sectors cannot be fully separated in North Korea (and what it tells us about price stability)

Anecdotal but highly valuable observations from inside North Korea suggest that the market economy is taking a hit from the overall decrease in economic activity in the state sector. None of this is surprising, and it makes perfect sense. As workers at factories and state enterprises either get paid less or not at all, their purchasing power drops. Fewer people can spend less money on the markets, leading to an overall depression of economic activity. Reports Daily NK:

Following news that most state-run factories in Pyongyang and other major cities have suspended operations, North Korean sources report that the number of merchants in some areas of the country have fallen drastically. This situation is reportedly due to decreased purchasing power among ordinary North Koreans on the back of the country’s economic stagnation.

“Before international sanctions, there were around 1,000 to 2,000 merchants, including those selling their wares outside the market, but now I only see around 100,” a South Pyongan Province-based source told the Daily NK on April 10. “Even those remaining merchants are just barely holding on. Some of them went to other places to do business but had to return because their efforts met with no success.”

“Only half of the market officials that once collected market fees are visible now,” said the source. “The officials face physical harm by the merchants when they try to collect the fees, so they avoid being out in the open.”

The source also reported that “Merchants have to sell 15 kilograms or more of food per day to pay the market fees. They aren’t selling even one kilogram a day” and that “Merchants are asking themselves rhetorically whether they’re just selling wares at the market to pay the fees.”

An investigation by the Daily NK has found that there has been little change to the number of active merchants in Pyongyang, Sinuiju, Hyesan, Pyongsong, Chongjin, Hamhung and other major cities. Small markets, however, appear to be facing a decrease in merchants.

The source said that economic stagnation has impacted North Korea’s poor classes, including those living in agricultural areas.

“The factories are shut down so people can’t get paid, and this means that no one is heading out to the markets,” said the source. “The international sanctions are so bad that there’s no work left. People don’t have money to buy anything.”

This all gets at a problem with analyzing North Korea’s economic situation based on price stability. Simple analysis of supply and demand holds that if overall availability of food goes down, prices go up. They haven’t in North Korea.

But what if people just don’t have money to spend on food if prices go up? Then, market suppliers couldn’t really raise prices much, because they’d already be pretty much at the highest level at which people are willing to purchase food (also known as the “reservation price”). It’s also important to remember that cash, according to a lot of anecdotal observations – and suggested by the state of the exchange rate – is generally rather scarcely available in North Korea, as the government seems to have contracted the money supply quite significantly over the past few years.

This is what I suspect is part of what’s going on the markets in North Korea, and some may have looked much too simplistically at food and currency market prices for a long time. Price stability doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of problems in the economy.

Article source here:
Drastic fall in market merchant numbers in some areas of North Korea
Mun Dong Hui
Daily NK
2019-04-18

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