News

By Daniel Kaufmann, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution Evidence suggests that over the past decade, misgovernance in the Arab world was not only acute, but also worsened over time.  Yet this poor and deteriorating quality of democratic governance was largely ignored... Read More

The 2012 ERF Annual Conference got off to a lively start in Cairo, Egypt, today, before it even officially opens, tomorrow. A workshop explored aspects of the Arab awakening in an attempt to understand the changes that have transformed the region in the... Read More

By Mirette F. Mabrouk It’s a truism to say that corruption is bad. Nor would it come as a surprise to most that the countries of ERF’s region have seen their fair share of corruption. Indeed, corruption appears to be... Read More

Corruption is unethical. But it may also have unexpectedly harmful effects on economic development, breeding negative work ethics and leading to waste and misallocation of resources, as well as adverse distribution of income and wealth. It is often associated with... Read More

The conference was closed with a panel discussion moderated by Ahmed Galal, Managing Director of the Economic Research Forum. The Panel included Abdullatif Al-Hamad, Director General and Chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development; Ibrahim Elbadawi, Economic... Read More

At the end of the first day, I had the opportunity to interview Paul Collier, Professor of Economics, Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at the University of Oxford. The following issues were addressed: Given that... Read More

The third session of the conference featured two presentations while focusing on “International vs. Arab Country Experiences”. The first one was presented by Thorvaldur Gylfason, Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics - University of Iceland, on “International Experiences... Read More

Given the significant role played by institutions with respect to oil management, the last session of the conference was dedicated to discuss “Institutions in Natural Resource-Rich Economies”. Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel, Catholic University of Chile, addressed Fiscal Institutions in Resource-rich Economies while... Read More

Moderated by Hassan Hakimian, University of London, the fifth session at the “Understanding and Avoiding the Oil Curse in the Arab World” Conference featured two presentations from Ibrahim Elbadawi (Economic Policy and Research Center - EPRC, Dubai Economic Council &... Read More