THE MEDDLE EAST ECONOMIES IN TIMES OF TRANSITION

Diwan and Galal look at the structure and prospects of the Middle East economies after the 2011 Uprisings, focusing on issues of economic growth, inequality, the impact of oil, and the unfolding political transitions. On inequality, the book offers new measures of equality of opportunity in human development and the job market, and it also reviews the complex political economy of subsidy removal. Regarding natural resources, the volume provides three innovations: connecting the notion of ‘oil curse’ to the global phenomena of asset bubbles; evidence that resource curse effects do not rise monotonically with the size of the resource rent, but rather, according to an inverted U shape; and an extension of the concept of rent to the other non-oil rents that are also predominant in the region.