A U.S. expert on Korean affairs says unification between the two Koreas could cost anywhere from two trillion to five trillion dollars.

Peter Beck, a Pantech Research Fellow at Stanford University, made the assessment in an article contributed to the Wall Street Journal.

Beck estimates that raising North Korean incomes to 80 percent of the levels in South Korea would cost anywhere from two to five trillion dollars spread out over 30 years.

According to Beck, policy-makers must discuss how a reunification can be funded in order to avoid post-unification confusion.

Beck said Korean unification, should it occur, would most likely take one of three forms: sudden and bloodless like what Germany experienced; a reunification marked by the kind of violence Vietnam suffered; or somewhere between the first two and akin to the chaotic post-Communist transitions of Romania and Albania.