Daron Acemoğlu Quote
The government in North Korea is a communist dictatorship opposed to private property and markets. But it is difficult to control black markets, and black markets make transactions in cash. Of course quite a bit of foreign exchange is involved, particularly Chinese currency, but many transactions use won. The currency reform was designed to punish people who used these markets and, more specifically, to make sure that they did not become too wealthy or powerful enough to threaten the regime. Keeping them poor was safer. Black markets are not the whole story. People in North Korea also keep their savings in wons because there are few banks in Korea, and they are all owned by the government. In effect, the government used the currency reform to expropriate much of people’s savings. Though the government says it regards markets as bad, the North Korean elite rather like what markets can produce for them.
The government in North Korea is a communist dictatorship opposed to private property and markets. But it is difficult to control black markets, and black markets make transactions in cash. Of course quite a bit of foreign exchange is involved, particularly Chinese currency, but many transactions use won. The currency reform was designed to punish people who used these markets and, more specifically, to make sure that they did not become too wealthy or powerful enough to threaten the regime. Keeping them poor was safer. Black markets are not the whole story. People in North Korea also keep their savings in wons because there are few banks in Korea, and they are all owned by the government. In effect, the government used the currency reform to expropriate much of people’s savings. Though the government says it regards markets as bad, the North Korean elite rather like what markets can produce for them.
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About Daron Acemoğlu
Acemoglu ranked third, behind Paul Krugman and Greg Mankiw, in the list of "Favorite Living Economists Under Age 60" in a 2011 survey among American economists. In 2015, he was named the most cited economist of the past 10 years per Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) data. According to the Open Syllabus Project, Acemoglu is the third most frequently cited author on college syllabi for economics courses after Mankiw and Krugman.