a trip to North Korea

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Thu Apr 20 07:52:22 PDT 2000



>Speaking of North Korea, I have a question for ya. I was under the
>impression that the country is a textbook example of squalor.
>However, perusing the WHO health statistics pages, I discovered that
>North Korea has just about the lowest infant mortality rate in the
>region (22 out of 1,000). What gives?
>

That number appears inconsistent with what we *think* we know about nutrition in North Korea today. It is what the government reports.

Elsewhere we can go to hospitals and clinics and check up on whether the government's reported aggregate statistics are reasonable. In North Korea we cannot.

Brad DeLong



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