Kategoria BISAC: Business & Economics >> Economic Conditions

The economy of Iraq has fluctuated wildly since the 1950s. It has been affected by changes in governments, by wars, and by general instability. This book analyzes a complex subject and is especially timely at this critical juncture in the history of Iraq, the Middle East, and international relations. Abbas Alnasrawi traces the growth of the Iraqi economy since 1950, assesses its present state of crisis and underdevelopment, and explores its prospects for recovery. Alnasrawi contends that the economic development of Iraq was shaped by the rise in oil revenue, the war between Iran and Iraq,...

The economy of the ancient Middle East and Greece is reinterpreted by Morris Silver in this provocative new synthesis. Silver finds that the ancient economy emerges as a class of economies with its own laws of motion shaped by transaction costs (the resources used up in exchanging ownership rights). The analysis of transaction costs provides insights into many characteristics of the ancient economy, such as the important role of the sacred and symbolic gestures in making contracts, magical technology, the entrepreneurial role of high-born women, the elevation of familial ties and other...

In the aftermath of the stock market crash, Irving Fisher pointed to the electrification of the U.S. industry as one of the underlying causes of the stock market boom. Earlier, in 1927, Brookings Institution economists had lamented the scant attention energy had received from economists. Today, some 60 years later, power remains the forgotten factor input. In this book, the author incorporates energy into the corpus of economic analysis. Unlike previous attempts, which were mostly theoretical, this work generates testable predictions. The result is a model of production based on the two...

The past ten years for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region countries have registered an extreme deterioration in at least one measure of social and economic welfare: earnings inequality, unemployment, and poverty. The combination of slow economic growth, population explosion, and decline in labor productivity led to the reversal of the economic gains achieved during the economic boom in the 1970s. In contrast to that period, growth per capita (GDP) in 1980-1991 for Arab countries was -0.2%. Several indicators point to the extent of the problems faced today by the region's...