The (Non) Impact of UN Sanctions on North Korea

Marcus Noland

No 98, Economics Study Area Working Papers from East-West Center, Economics Study Area

Abstract: This study finds that North Korea's nuclear test and the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions have had no perceptible effect on trade with its two largest partners, China and South Korea. Before North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, it was widely believed that such an event would have cataclysmic diplomatic ramifications. However, beginning with visual inspection of data and ending with time-series models, no evidence is found to support the notion that these events have had any effect on North Korea's trade with its two principal partners. In retrospect, North Korea may have calculated quite correctly that the direct penalties for establishing itself as a nuclear power would be modest (or, alternatively, put such a high value on demonstrating its nuclear capability that it outweighed the downside risks however large). If sanctions are to deter behavior in the future, they will have to be much more enthusiastically implemented.

JEL-codes: F (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages 27
Date: 2009-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/ECONwp098.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/ECONwp098.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.eastwestcenter.org/stored/pdfs/ECONwp098.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The (Non) Impact of UN Sanctions on North Korea (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ewc:wpaper:wp98

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Study Area Working Papers from East-West Center, Economics Study Area Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Brenda Higashimoto ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).