Summary of General Discussion on “Economic Impacts of Reunifications in Germany and in Korea”

During the general discussion several participants noted that the German unification may not be the appropriate benchmark for analyzing the potential effects of unification between North Korea and South Korea. Moreover, there seemed to be broad agreement that the unification scenarios presented by the authors may be too pessimistic and Shandre Mugan Thangavelu noted that a broader review of the literature may help balance the discussion. Jie Li proposed looking at the experience of China and Hong Kong, and Wing Thye Woo suggested considering Vietnam's experience—although Quoh Huy Vu noted that, to his knowledge, no economic impact analysis had been undertaken for Vietnam. Woo added that an important factor missing in the analysis is foreign investment, which increased sharply following unification in Vietnam. The importance of foreign investment and foreign aid was also noted by Iris Claus in the case of Korea. Moreover, she pointed out that North Korea has...