Kim Jong Un’s first ten years in office have been a decisively mixed bag for the economy. Compared to his father’s first decade, Kim has maintained a reasonable food supply (by North Korean standards) and made some clear attempts to fix some of the most glaring incentive mismatches, but he has also worsened the country’s international isolation and cut it off from most trade flows and investment. 

Since last year, COVID-19 has exacerbated trends away from reform and greater openness toward the outside world, and it is far from clear whether this will change