Hyeong-jung’s “Towards a Political Analysis of Markets in North Korea.” It shows how North Korea’s exclusive political institutions disadvantage larges swaths of the population. Putting small scale markets aside, Park focuses on the extractive economic practices of the “state trading companies” doing business in “certain products, mostly marine, mined natural resources, etc.” Owned and run by the military, the party, and the Cabinet, these state-sanctioned and controlled business make a mighty dollar – for the regime. Thus, business that is officially recognized and “regulated” is not that which opens up much opportunity for anyone except those with significant amounts of political power. These are the kinds of economic and political institutions that Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson discussed in their powerfully simple book, Why Nations Fail.