This paper analyses the connection between resource wealth, governance and economic performance in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Since independence, both countries have remained heavily resource-dependent and they have had political stability, but despite some similarities, their economic...

Central Asian governments frequently express the goal of economic diversification, and specifically of diversifying their agricultural sector, but with little actual impact. Diversification has not happened because high trade costs discourage farmers, potential foreign investors and others from...

A century ago, Alfred Marshall demonstrated the inefficiency associated with farmers receiving only a portion of their marginal product. Farmers will supply less labor than under arrangements in which they receive their marginal product; output will be sub-optimal. Explanations of sharecropping...

What is required for a poor country to turn a valuable resource endowment into a driver of development? The resource curse literature highlighted the importance of institutions and the nature of the resource, neither of which is a useful policy guide. A more recent literature views resource...

Recent empirical studies of the phenomenon of intra-industry trade, i.e. simultaneous import and export of goods from the same industry, have found it to assume significant proportions in the industrialized countries. The present paper reports the extent of intra-industry trade in the...

In this paper the policy of the Israeli government towards imports of manufactured goods is examined. This policy has passed throuth two distinct phases. In the 1950s quantitative restrictions on imports were enforced to stimulate domestic production of import substitutes. In the 1960s the...

In 1975 Israel and the EEC signed a preferential trade agreement, which included provision for free trade in manufactured goods between the signatories by 1989 at the latest. The present study examines the economic consequences for Israel of such a free trade area. Although political factors are...

The aims of this paper are firstly to present a unified description of the Israeli government's export policies and of the growth and composition of Israel's exports and secondly to provide macroeconomic analysis of her export performance. The first section outlines the major policies which the...

International supply chains are dependent on ease of crossing borders and efficient connectivity in terms of price, speed, and reliability. Initially responding to demand from automobile and electronics firms to connect their European and Chinese supply chains with faster and more reliable...

The agricultural sector in Kazakhstan experienced declining output throughout the 1990s, partly because relative prices shifted from being distorted in favor of farmers to being distorted against them. After the end of the decade public policy shifted towards support for (or less discrimination...