11 Items

Iran Currency

AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

Blog Post - Iran Matters

Is Iran's Economy Collapsing?

    Author:
  • Arash Pourebrahimi
| Aug. 07, 2018

Iran’s economy is having difficulties for sure but is far from “collapsing”. While the Iranian rial has lost more than 50 percent of its value against the US dollar in the unofficial market since January 2018, this is nothing new for Iran’s economy. Every president since the end of Iran-Iraq war had to deal with a sort of analogous currency crisis.

Rouhani

Tasnim News

Blog Post - Iran Matters

A Wake-up Call to Rouhani

    Author:
  • Masoud Movahed
| Jan. 17, 2018

The recent protests in Iran are surely a wakeup call for President Rouhani. To respond the legitimate grievances of low-income Iranian households, the Rouhani government should do its best to further diversify the Iranian economy and to bolster its manufacturing and industrial sectors. The Rouhani government should also promote the export of non-oil products, following the models of countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, and recently, the Chinese leviathan. Labor-intensive industries as well as service sectors like information technology, ought to be solidified. Rouhani should call upon state-directed industrial committees and agencies to provide Iranian entrepreneurs and manufacturers with fiscal resources, and he should foster financial support and protection for firms that place emphasis on exporting goods abroad.

Rouhani reelection rally

President.ir

Blog Post - Iran Matters

The Significance of Hassan Rouhani’s Reelection as President of Iran

    Author:
  • Ephraim Kam
| June 06, 2017

What can we expect from Rouhani’s second term? The large majority with which he won does not change the basic fact that the number one decision-maker in Iran remains Supreme Leader Khamenei. Ephraim Kam writes to Iran Matters that it is doubtful that Rouhani’s large majority will translate into greater power vis-à-vis Khamenei and the regime’s radical wing, as the president will likely continue to depend on them.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Fiscal Education for the G-7

| May 26, 2016
As the G-7 Leaders gather in Ise-Shima, Japan, on May 26-27, the still fragile global economy is on their minds.  They would like a road map to address stagnant growth. Their approach should be to talk less about currency wars and more about fiscal policy.Fiscal policy vs. monetary policyUnder the conditions that have prevailed in most major countries over the last ten years, we have reason to think that fiscal policy is a more powerful tool for affecting the level of economic activity, as compared to monetary policy.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

It Takes More than Two to Tango: Cry, But Not for Argentina, nor for the Holdouts

| July 22, 2014
U.S. federal courts have ruled that Argentina is prohibited from making payments to fulfill 2005 and 2010 agreements with its creditors to restructure its debt, so long as it is not also paying a few creditors that have all along been holdouts from those agreements.  The judgment is likely to stick, because the judge (Thomas Griesa, in New York) told American banks on June 27 that it would be illegal for them to transfer Argentina’s payments to the 92 per cent of creditors who agreed to be restructured and because the US Supreme Court in June declined to review the lower court rulings.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Escaping The Oil Curse

| Dec. 15, 2011
Libyans have a new lease on life, a feeling that, at long last, they are the masters of their own fate. Perhaps Iraqis, after a decade of warfare, feel the same way. Both countries are oil producers, and there is widespread expectation among their citizens that that wealth will be a big advantage in rebuilding their societies.Meanwhile, in Africa, Ghana has begun pumping oil for the first time, and Uganda is about to do so as well. Indeed, from West Africa to Mongolia, countries are experiencing windfalls from new sources of oil and mineral wealth.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Escaping the Oil Curse

| Dec. 15, 2011
Libyans have a new lease on life, a feeling that, at long last, they are the masters of their own fate. Perhaps Iraqis, after a decade of warfare, feel the same way. Both countries are oil producers, and there is widespread expectation among their citizens that that wealth will be a big advantage in rebuilding their societies.Meanwhile, in Africa, Ghana has begun pumping oil for the first time, and Uganda is about to do so as well. Indeed, from West Africa to Mongolia, countries are experiencing windfalls from new sources of oil and mineral wealth.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Food Security: Export Controls are Not the Cure for Grain Price Volatility, But the Cause

| Aug. 23, 2010
         My last blog post listed some policies and institutions with which various small countries around the world have had success — innovations that might be worthy of emulation by others.  Of course there are plenty of other examples of policies and institutions that have been tried and that are to be avoided.    The area of agricultural policy is rife with them.   Many start with a confused invoking of the need for “food security.”           The recent run-up in wheat prices is a good example.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

UAE and Other Gulf Countries Urged to Switch Currency Peg from the Dollar to a Basket That Includes Oil

| July 08, 2008
The possibility that some Gulf states, particularly the United Arab Emirates, might abandon their long-time pegs to the dollar has been getting increasing attention recently (for example, from Feldstein and, especially, Setser). It makes sense. The combination of high oil prices, rapid growth, a tightly fixed exchange rate, and the big depreciation of the dollar against other currencies (especially the euro, important for Gulf imports) was always going to be a recipe for strong money inflows and inflation in these countries.

Blog Post - Views on the Economy and the World

Support the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia!

| Apr. 24, 2008
Nicholas Kristof’s column in the New York Times today, “Better Roses than Cocaine,” says it all.   There is no good reason for the US Congress to continue to hold up the free trade agreement that the Administration has negotiated with Colombia.    Free trade with Colombia can’t have anything to do with loss of US jobs:   Colombia’s exports already enter the US duty-free.   Rather, the Free Trade Agreement would reduce remaining Colombian barriers to imports from the US.