Hossein Askari

Islam and the path to human and economic development

The Evolution of the Western Concept of Development Development as Human Wellbeing The Foundational Elements of Development in Islam The Dimensions of Development in Islam The Institutional Structure of Development in Islam

U.S. ECONOMIC SANCTIONS: An Empirical Study

Using a gravity model, we conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of U.S. economic sanctions on U.S. trade with target countries and on third countries. Our findings show that the impact on U.S. trade is very sensitive to how the sanctioned country list is identified and selected. We find no significant impact of U.S. economic sanctions on trade between the United States and countries that are subject to selective sanctions. For only countries subject to comprehensive sanctions have we found a significant reduction in bilateral trade; and these same sanctions increased trade between target countries and the EU or Japan. Using a sample that includes only the formerly planned economies that were long the target of U.S. economic sanctions in recent history, our results show that U.S. economic sanctions have a significant impact on U.S. exports, imports, and total trade with these countries, and these effects have lingered for more than a decade after the Cold War had ended.

Management of Newly Privatized Companies: Its Importance and How Little We Know

Abstract Despite the extensive privatization efforts throughout the world since 1980, state-owned enterprises still contribute a significant share of GDP of many countries. Both developing and developed countries are committed to further reduce the role of their state sector and to stimulate efficiency in their economies. Privatization is, and will continue to be, an important and major activity in this process. Successful privatization however, requires sound management policies on the part of newly privatized industries. In order to ensure the success of privatization, more attention should be paid to the reforms in management and in governance of newly privatized industries.

How Do US Economic Sanctions Affect EU's Trade with Target Countries?

We investigate the impact of US economic sanctions on EUs trade using a panel data approach expressed in a two-level framework. Both multilateral and unilateral sanctions involving the US and the EU have a negative impact on EU trade (total, imports and exports). We argue that unilateral sanctions, if extensive in nature, would have a depressing impact on target countries’ trade, especially in the stage after sanctions have been imposed. Over time, both multilateral and unilateral sanctions lead to an increase in a target countrys exports to the EU, lending support to the third-country effect of sanctions.

Oil-exporting countries of the Persian Gulf: What happened to all that money?

Abstract Our objective is to assess the economic performance of Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries over the past 25 years based on their general economic characteristics (economic dependence on a depletable resource) and attendant policy requirements (transforming to a non-depletable resource-based economy). As oil-exporting countries, we assess the macroeconomic and development policies that they should have implemented and have actually implemented over time. We find that their policies have rarely been consistent with the requirements of exhaustible resource-based economies. This has resulted in a widespread misallocation of resources and a divergence from their essential goal of economic transformation.

Corruption: A View from the Persian Gulf

Corruption has been and continues to be evident in all societies, with differences only in manifestation and degrees. We focus on the manifestation and impact of corruption in the Persian Gulf oil-exporting countries and benchmark these countries against a set of non-oil-exporting Islamic countries and major non-Islamic oil-exporting countries. We first measure the degree of corruption in these countries using five of the most widely accepted direct and indirect indices of corruption. We then examine the relationship between corruption and various indicators of economic, social, and human development. Finally, we examine the association between corruption and oil endowment and the Islamic label, two common characteristics of the countries in the Persian Gulf. As such, the key focus of the paper is on the manifestation and impact of corruption in the Persian Gulf oil-exporting countries from a political-economy stand point and measurement of the impact of corruption on economic, social, and human development in the region. It should be mentioned that this paper was written before the blossoming of the “2011 Arab Spring.” The major reasons, to varying degrees, for the protests in the Mideast and North Africa have been because of decades of economic deprivation, autocratic rule, political injustice, institutional corruption, and human rights violations.

Stability of export earnings of developing nations

The purpose of this paper is to examine export earning stability for 70 LDCs, over a time period from 1954 to 1968. Our intention is to test a traditional hypothesis that LDCs exporting a large percentage of primary products must on this account suffer from a large degree of export instability. Our results leads us to reject this hypothesis. We do not find any evidence in our work to support this view, in fact we find the opposite is true, that instability appears to be a larger problem for exporters of manufactured than non‐manufactured goods.

Measuring Vulnerability to U.S. Foreign Economic Sanctions

AbstractThis study concentrates on the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) to demonstrate a way to improve the consensus forecasts of interest rates. It promotes the notion that, in improving the survey forecast accuracy of a variable, one should investigate the usefulness of the predictive information contained in the survey forecasts of other theoretically relevant variables. This idea has been applied to the SPF forecasts of the 3-month Treasury-bill rate, which are shown to be one-sided for 2001.1-2003.4. We improve the accuracy of these forecasts by exploiting the predictive information contained in the SPF forecasts of inflation and output growth. We thus recommend that the possible improvement should be investigated before such interest rate forecasts are utilized for decision-making.

The Militarization of the Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf is arguably the most militarized region in the world. The authors of this insightful book examine military expenditures, arms imports and military deployment to analyze how and why this came to be. Muslim teachings have much to say about peace, war and economics, and this book explores the ways in which Islamic thought affects military and economic developments.

Corruption and its Manifestation in the Persian Gulf

The authors of this timely book investigate various forms and measures of corruption, examine whether corruption is more acute in Persian Gulf countries than elsewhere, and illustrate the unique forms it takes in oil- and natural gas-rich economies. They also analyze the major factors that promote corrupt practices and how they impact economic growth and social development.