Exit Polls: Refugee Assessments of North Korea's Transition

Yoonok Chang (), Stephan Haggard () and Marcus Noland
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Yoonok Chang: Hansei University, Foreign Language Education Center, Department of Graduate Education
Stephan Haggard: University of California, San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies

No WP08-1, Working Paper Series from Peterson Institute for International Economics

Abstract: Results from a survey of more than 1,300 North Korean refugees in China provide insight into changing economic conditions in North Korea. There is modest evidence of slightly more positive assessments among those who exited the country following the initiation of reforms in 2002. Education breeds skepticism; higher levels of education were associated with more negative perceptions of economic conditions and reform efforts. Other demographic markers such as gender or provincial origin are not robustly correlated with attitudes. Instead, personal experiences appear to be central: A significant number of the respondents were unaware of the humanitarian aid program and the ones who knew of it almost universally did not believe that they were beneficiaries. This group's evaluation of the regime, its intentions, and accomplishments is overwhelmingly negative--even more so than those of respondents who report having had experienced incarceration in political detention facilities--and attests to the powerful role that the famine experience continues to play in the political economy of the country.

Keywords: North Korea; transition; reform; refugees; famine; aid (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 P2 P3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Journal Article: Exit polls: Refugee assessments of North Korea's transition (2009)
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