DAY 1 - The 18th Annual Conference of the Arab Society for Economic Research

Current technological developments in manufacturing are likely to lead to a partial reversal of the wave of fragmentation and global value chains that was at the core of the rise of North-South trade from 1990 onwards. At the same time, China – the main hub of the global-growth-cum-structural-change of that period - may attempt to extend the previous wave through its “One Belt, One Road” initiative. ...

لقد حققت معدلات الدخل ومستويات العيش تحسناً غير مسبوق في العديد من مناطق العالم، وذلك بعد أن عرفت ارتفاعاً مطرداً على مدى عقود متتالية. بيد أن آفاق التجارة العالمية والنمو الاقتصادي ما تزال محفوفة بالغموض، كما يبدو أن النزعة الحمئية سائرة في تزايد مستمر. ففي الدول المتقدمة، هناك قلق ناجم عن فقدان الوظائف التصنيعية التي شغَّلت فيما مضى فئة كبيرة من العمالة، وخلقت طبقة متوسطة شكلت نواة الديمقراطية في هذه الدول. هذا ولم تنجح معظم الدول ذات الدخل المتوسط في اللَّحاق بنظيرتها العالية الد ...

The purpose of this paper is to propose the establishment of a forward-looking partnership between China and Morocco, centered around the agri-food issue in Africa. It is in Africa that the food demand will increase in a very significant way during the 21st century due, in particular, to population growth and the acceleration of urban development. Africa must succeed in its agricultural revolution in order to fight hunger and poverty, ensure the industrialization of its economy and ...

This paper sheds light on the increasing and persistent skilled unemployment in Morocco over the past decade – oscillating around 20% of total unemployment. It identifies and estimates the role and significance of a skill mismatch between Morocco’s education system and its labor market, illustrated by the ratio between technical and general university degrees produced by the education system. The paper finds supporting evidence that a skill mismatch does play a significant role in e ...

According to the European Union over a million asylum rejected asylum seekers have been ordered to return to their country of origin from Europe alone, or will be soon. To these could be added refugees that have been given temporary shelter but who could be asked to return once conditions in their home country improve. The debate on returning asylum seekers and refugees is nearly always cast in political, legal and humanitarian terms. This paper looks at the question of return stric ...

After many decades of expansion, incomes and standards of living have never been better in many parts of the world. Yet, in the developed economies, there is anxiety over the loss of manufacturing jobs that once absorbed a large share of the labor force and created a middle class that formed the core of democracy. The vast majority of middle- income countries have not yet been able to make the transition to the high-income group despite decades of growth. Progress among low-income c ...

Input-output tables provide a rich source of information about the structure of economies that is not available from other frameworks. In addition to providing key information for the analysis of linkages between activities (and regions), the tables also provide the underlying core database used in a range of economic models. If used appropriately, these more sophisticated models can meaningfully assess the impact of economic change, at the national and regional levels. They can als ...

The rise of protectionism, economic nationalism and nativism in the United States can be attributed inter alia to the nation’s wage stagnation and rising inequality. Other countries are responding by reevaluating their reliance on the American hegemon. But this is not enough. Policy-makers also need to ask what lessons they can draw for their domestic policies from the United States’ success in creating wealth while, at the same time, failing to distribute it equitably and to reduce ...

Location decisions of firms and workers shape the spatial distribution of economic activity between and within cities. On one hand, the interaction between cities is widely investigated in the literature of regional and urban economics, which tries to assess the extent to which urban scale affects the local concentration of different skills, sectors, etc., apart from defining each city's role in the regional system. On the other hand, within-city dynamics and internal heterogeneity ...