The book provides students from economics, political science, and public policy with an accessible overview of economic theory, allowing them to better understand the subsequent chapters which explain why the Arab region lags behind other middle income countries in economic and human development. I highly recommend this volume for graduate survey courses on Middle East Politics and political economy of development
James Rauch is Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He has done extensive research in the Middle East and was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Financial Economics in the American University of Beirut.