Much ink is still spilled about North Korea’s court economy; a concept that is rooted in old ways of thinking about the DPRK economy and of how elite politics operates in Pyongyang.

The standard trope goes like this:

There is a people’s economy, which is state-run and state-owned and functions badly. There is market economy that is small-scale and reluctantly tolerated. There is a court economy, which is based on currency operations used by the leadership to finance the lifestyles of high elites, ensuring their loyalty and buy-in to the system.