Korean unification: How painful and how costly?

Unification between two countries is not a purely economic phenomenon but a multidimensional phenomenon. We evaluate the prospects of unification between South Korea and North Korea from a multidimensional perspective encompassing the political, social, economic and technological dimensions. To do so, we use the Global Dimension of Regional Integration model developed by [Ruiz, M. A. (2004). The Global Dimension of Regional Integration Model (GDRI-Model), FEA 2004–7. Faculty of Economics and Administration (FEA) Working Papers. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: University of Malaya]. Our main finding is a wide and growing gap between the two Koreas in terms of political, social, economic and technological development as well as overall development. This suggests that inter-Korean unification is likely to be a costly and disruptive process.