Provides original insights into the functioning of the GCC macro-economy. It covers structural, long-term, issues such as the determinants of economic growth, the impact of foreign workers on labour markets, wages, and competitiveness, and the economic impact of a rich state that wants to distribute oil money.

The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (OECS/ECCU) is one of four currency unions in the world. As in other parts of the world in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, the region is at a crossroads, facing the major challenges of creating jobs, making growth more inclusive, reforming the banking system, and managing volatility, while grappling with high public debt and persistent low economic growth. Policymakers have the critical task of implementing strong reforms to strengthen the monetary union while also laying the foundation for accelerating growth. This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the key issues in the OECS/ECCU, including its organization and economic and financial sector linkages, and provides policy recommendations to foster economic growth.

Despite notable socio-economic development in the Arab region, a deficit in democracy and political rights has continued to prevail. This book examines the major reasons underlying the persistence of this democracy deficit over the past decades, drawing on case studies from across the Arab world to explore economic development, political institutions and social factors, and the impact of oil wealth and regional wars.

The economies of the Arab states of the Gulf have gone through considerable changes in the last decade, spurred by high oil prices and ambitious diversification plans. Large-scale immigration provided the labour force while capital inflows and financial development leveraged oil wealth to finance diversification. The collapse in real estate prices around the world followed by the global crisis slowed growth and raised questions on the appropriateness of what has been dubbed the 'GCC model'. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have thus far managed to leverage their large natural resource wealth to achieve economic prosperity and finance social advances, and the region also emerged as an important source of funds for the other countries in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the GCC face several challenges. Productivity growth must increase to fully reap the benefits of investment. Jobs must be created for the nationals and the growing youth population. State intervention (which is prevalent, given that oil revenues accrue to the government) must become efficient and be used to diversify and modernize the economy. In addition, the recent crisis highlighted the importance of fiscal, monetary, and financial stability policies to manage macroeconomic cycles. This book analyses these issues and combines data and econometric analysis with theoretical discussions. It concludes with a discussion of the importance of the GCC for the wider region.

Tracing the development journey of the Arabian Gulf region with a forward-looking perspective, this book describes how a combination of good fortune, creative experimentation, and determination has enabled the region to achieve prosperity. Today, the Arabian Gulf is well positioned to assume a pivotal role in the new global order. Forced to balance an extreme climate and acute resource constraints, but also an exceptional location, the region’s progress and prosperity have historically been precarious and vulnerable to external shocks. Efforts to transcend resource dependency have typically involved proactive attempts to enable other economic activities. This book argues that, while conventional economic diversification is making headway, the Gulf region is in fact amidst a far more holistic transformation that positions it for a pivotal role in the emerging multipolar global order. It now offers globally competitive regulations and world-class infrastructure at the heart of the Old World, flanked by two fast-growing continents. It has become the hub of choice for a growing share of inter-continental flows of people, trade, and capital, and has established strong economic ties in all directions. This book shows how, despite many risks and challenges, the region possesses the forward-looking vision and necessary resilience that can finally liberate it from its long-standing "resource curse" and a development paradigm that looks likely to provide the foundation for sustained well-being in the decades ahead. The scope and rigor of the book make it suitable as a reference on the Arabian Gulf and for those interested in global affairs and economic development, as well as policymakers and the business community.

Setting macroeconomic policy is especially difficult in fragile states. Political legitimacy concerns are heightened, raising issues such as who the policymakers are, what incentives they face, and how the process of policymaking is likely to work under limited legitimacy and high uncertainty both about the macroeconomic environment as well as policy effectiveness. In addition, fragility expands the range of policy objectives in ways that may constrain the attainment of standard macroeconomic objectives. Specifically, in the context of fragility policymakers also need to focus on measures to mitigate fragility itself - i.e., they need to address issues such as regional and ethnic economic disparities, youth unemployment, and food price inflation. Socio-political developments around the world have thus pushed policymakers to broaden their toolkit to improve the effectiveness of macroeconomic management in the face of these constraints. The chapters in Macroeconomic Policy in Fragile States address these issues, both by giving an analytical context from which policymakers can build to answer the questions they face in fragile situations as well as by providing lessons drawn from empirical analyses and case studies. The first section of the volume discusses the interactions between political economy considerations and macroeconomic policymaking. The second section covers the private sector environment in fragile states. The third section focuses on macroeconomic policy, especially fiscal policy, monetary policy, exchange rate policy, external flows, and aid effectiveness. The last section explains the role of the IMF in fragile states and concludes by presenting case studies from the Middle East and from Sub-Saharan Africa. The contributors to the volume are economists and political scientists from academia as well as policymakers from international organizations and from countries affected by fragility.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.