Debts and Arab Agriculture: Economic Elements

Crushing national debts, economic revolutions, and extraordinary popular delusions

Economic forecasting in agriculture

Forecasts of agricultural production and prices are intended to be useful for farmers, governments, and agribusiness industries. Because of the special position of food production in a nation’s security, governments have become both principal suppliers and main users of agricultural forecasts. They need internal forecasts to execute policies that provide technical and market support for the agr...

The Arab Awakening: Determinants and Economic Consequences

February 2014 Economist Zubair Iqbal explains the daunting economic challenges facing Arab countries in transition following the Arab Awakening and the different trajectories stemming from those nations’ policy responses. Tunisia and Egypt provide an instructive case study: the former made hard fiscal decisions and has embraced sound economic principles and achieved broad support for a reform p...

Socio-economic context and role of agriculture

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa and is one of the most biologically and culturally diverse countries on the continent. With a population of about 92 million, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite being one of the poorest countries, with a per capita income of US$454 (substantially lower than the regi...

Climate Change and Agriculture: Economic Impacts

Agriculture is arguably the most important sector of the economy that is highly dependent on climate. A large body of scientific data and models have been developed to predict the impacts of the contemporary and future climate. Since the first IPCC Assessment Report was published in 1990, substantial efforts have been directed toward understanding climate change impacts on agricultural systems....