Reliability and Usability of the DPRK Statistics: Case of Grain Statistics in 1946. 2000
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This paper examines the availability, reliability, and basic features of DPRK statistics using the official grain statistics between 1946 and 2000 and their outside estimates. It concerns the common data problem facing any study of the DPRK economy. The main findings of the paper are as follows. First, available official statistics are relatively complete, clear, continuous, and reliable for the period between 1946 and 1957. A widely held conception that DPRK statistics are deliberately falsified and extensively exaggerated is unfounded, as far as this period is concerned. Second, available official statistics are incomplete, unclear, discontinuous, and unreliable from the 1960s to the early 1990s when the country was under statistical blackout. It is therefore necessary to employ appropriate outside estimates for study of the DPRK economy during this period. Third, currently available are six different outside estimates on the DPRK grain production. Of them, the FAO estimates are most appropriate: they approximate ‘missing’ official statistics best and are relatively most reliable. Fourth, official DPRK statistics are most abundant, clear, continuous, and reliable for the period from 1995 to the present. They provide a relatively accurate picture of the DPRK economy so that the data problem does not seem so serious for this period.
Abstract
This paper examines the availability, reliability, and basic features of DPRK statistics using the official grain statistics between 1946 and 2000 and their outside estimates. It concerns the common data problem facing any study of the DPRK economy. The main findings of the paper are as follows. First, available official statistics are relatively complete, clear, continuous, and reliable for the period between 1946 and 1957. A widely held conception that DPRK statistics are deliberately falsified and extensively exaggerated is unfounded, as far as this period is concerned. Second, available official statistics are incomplete, unclear, discontinuous, and unreliable from the 1960s to the early 1990s when the country was under statistical blackout. It is therefore necessary to employ appropriate outside estimates for study of the DPRK economy during this period. Third, currently available are six different outside estimates on the DPRK grain production. Of them, the FAO estimates are most appropriate: they approximate ‘missing’ official statistics best and are relatively most reliable. Fourth, official DPRK statistics are most abundant, clear, continuous, and reliable for the period from 1995 to the present. They provide a relatively accurate picture of the DPRK economy so that the data problem does not seem so serious for this period.