• International Area Studies Review
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.141-158
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to firstly estimate the inflation rate of North Korea using relative purchasing power parity. Most of the existing studies use North Korean rice prices as proxy to explain changes in North Korean prices. In this study, North Korea's price was estimated by applying purchasing power parity, which was used to estimate the price of socialist countries in the past, to North Korea. Second, it analyzes the impact of North Korea's price inflation after the institutional change of currency reform. We looked at the movements of North Korean prices after the institutional change of currency reform and compared it with the post-monetary reform of other socialist countries. We examine the impact of currency reform on North Korea, focusing on the price. As a result, after the currency reform in 2009, North Korea experienced hyperinflation. The North Korean inflation rate in the model was 3,010.0% in 2010, 195.0% in 2011, 68.0% in 2012 and 48.3% in 2013. After the currency reform of North Korea, the inflation rate is much higher than the socialist countries such as China and Vietnam who had experienced currency reform before. North Korea's monetary reforms are considered to have failed because of the side effects of hyperinflation.