Why the GCC Needs to Adopt Economic Policy Experimentation
From the days of antiquity, through to the middle of the twentieth century, economics was largely a deductive and narrative discipline. The leading contributions were dense treatises hundreds of pages in length, with scarcely a number or equation in sight.
Shrinking the Public Sector in the GCC
In most GCC countries, for some time, over 50% of employed nationals have been working in the public sector—a very large percentage by international standards, as in advanced economies, public sectors usually account for around 20% of total employment.
Entrepreneurship, Not Government Jobs, to Empower Gulf States’ Own Steve Jobs
This trend, combined with a growing youth population, poses a challenge to the GCC’s capacity to create sufficient job opportunities – a novel problem for wealthy economies.
Abu Dhabi Mergers Have Similar Causes but Different Purposes
In response to two recent Abu Dhabi mergers – National Bank of Abu Dhabi with FGB (a combined market value of US$30 billion) and the International Petroleum Investment Company with Mubadala Development Company (with combined assets of $127bn) – one may wonder: why, and why now?
Venezuela’s Crisis: Lessons for the GCC
The period following WW2 witnessed the emergence of a military conflict between American and the Soviet union. The capitalist and socialist-communist economic models also crossed swords as a subplot of this global conflict, and the…
Why Rents Can Be Slow to Fall in the UAE and Elsewhere
Markets are complex, and consumers often struggle to understand pricing decisions, resorting to conspiracy theories. For example, in countries with floating petrol prices – the UAE is a new member of this club after subsidy reforms – consumers are convinced that…
Time for the GCC to Leave OPEC
For Saudi Arabia and the remaining Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates), which together account for around 40 percent of the world’s oil reserves and the lion’s share of OPEC’s collective output, their future oil strategy should be an exclusively GCC affair, away from the stress and dysfunction of OPEC.
Why Behavioral Biases Increase the Pain of Subsidy Cuts
Subsidies in the GCC are a tradition that is particularly difficult to justify, and Twain’s maxim has likely underlain some of the challenges faced by the Gulf governments as they have tried to scale back subsidies. Biases in the way that humans think present additional obstacles to reform.
The GCC Countries and Yemen: a Future Vision for Regional Security
Uberizing Saudi Arabia
This is the Thatcher revolution for Saudi Arabia?,” is the question that The Economist recently posed to Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, regarding his comprehensive economic reform plan…
