Famine in North Korea: Causes and cures

We model a production-oriented recovery program as the restoration of flood-affected lands. As an alternative to this production-oriented program, we model an external assistance program as the acquisition of all food aid necessary to attain the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), World Food Programme (WFP), and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) estimates of minimum human needs. The trade-oriented recovery program is modeled as a relaxation of agricultural import quotas and the importation of food on commercial terms. We model a systemic reform program as the elimination of quantitative restrictions on all external trade, which allows the economy to align domestic production according to comparative advantage. Finally, we model complete recovery as the systematic reform scenario plus the restoration of agricultural yields to their precrisis level as the result of the increased availability of intermediate inputs such as fertilizer. We examine the implications for domestic food availability (as well as other indicators of welfare), taking into consideration the distribution of income between urban and rural residents. We do not consider the likelihood that the current regime may undertake any of these actions or, indeed, any significant policy changes at all. Rather, we simply examine the possible implications of various alternative actions.