Since suffering economic difficulties, particularly from the 1990s onwards, North Korea, even implicitly, has taken several actions based on the nature of its limited market economy system. North Korean scholars seem to have attempted to practice economic reform and a more open-door policy by learning the capitalistic market economy system. This paper investigates the current state of trends of North Korean studies associated with economics and management. It is found that even though directly praising and idolizing “Kim Il Sung” and/or “Kim Jong Il” are consistently accomplished, studies on new and subtle issues such as an open-door policy, the global (international) monetary system, compensation, wage (salaries),and self-financing (financing a giupso, in itself, without external financing such as borrowing or issuing shares) drastically increased in the 2000s, especially before and after the announcement of the ‘7.1 Economic Management Improvement Measures’ implemented in July 2002. This paper’s findings suggest that North Korea has tried to learn capitalistic market economy system before it takes any steps regarding economic reform. This paper also identifies the political implications in drawing up initiatives in preparation for the era of unification of the two Koreas.