Department: Economics.

During 1953-1955, the American agricultural economist Marion Clawson advised the Government of Israel (GOI) as a member of the Economic Advisory Staff (EAS), a group of American economists invited by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Clawson, a protégé of John D. Black and Mordecai Ezekiel, was...

This paper documents Richard Kahn's role as an unofficial advisor to the Israeli Government, using archival and published sources. In 1957, Kahn predicted that the EEC customs union would harm Israel's trade and that the EEC would reject Israel's application for Associate Membership. He proposed...

Episodes of monetary instability in Ottoman Egypt stimulated a discussion of monetary doctrine among Egyptian rabbis. A central issue was the valuation of debts following changes in the value of silver coins. While the leading rabbi of the 16th century advocated linkage to gold coins, the rabbis...

This is the first study of bread regulation in a post-World War II democratic country. Under Israel’s Labor Socialist regime, bread was mostly privately supplied. In setting prices, policymakers faced tradeoffs between producer profits/viability of small-scale producers and consumer welfare,...

We examine how the Mapai-Right Liberal rift shaped Israel's first Antitrust Law (1959). We document the protracted political debate regarding the proposed Law, which lasted from March 1950 until August 1959. While Mapai feared that the private sector would collude against consumer interests, the...

This chapter surveys the writings of medieval Jewish rabbis on usury during 1050-1565. These writings belonged to three literary genres: legal, ethical/pietistic, and Biblical commentary. After surveying the moralistic condemnations of usury by medieval rabbis, I illustrate three theoretical...