North Korea is routinely described as a “starving Stalinist economy,” but this oft-repeated cliché is both outdated and misleading. To start with, North Korea has a large private sector, which is now believed to be responsible for a large share of the country’s small GDP – between 25 percent and 40 percent, depending on whose estimates you believe. Second, it is not starving: The last decade was a time of modest but noticeable economic  growth. The pessimists in the Bank of (South) Korea estimate the annual growth at paltry 1.3-1.5 percent while optimists (largely in the embassies located in Pyongyang)