Subsidizing Basic Commodities in the Gulf Arab States: Distortive and Regressive
This paper uses economic theory to demonstrate the negative implications of subsidies.
Omar Al-Ubaydli
Non-Resident Fellow
Omar Al-Ubaydli is a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington as well as the program director for International and Geopolitical Studies at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies (Derasat). He is additionally an affiliated associate professor of economics at George Mason University and an affiliated senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. His research interests include political economy, experimental economics, and the economics of the GCC countries. Al-Ubaydli previously served as a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Joint Advisory Board of Economists and a visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He regularly publishes his research in international peer-reviewed academic journals, and his mainstream media articles appear in Arabic and English-language newspapers and blogs such as Al-Hayat, Newsweek ME, Forbes Opinion, and US News. Al-Ubaydli earned his BA in economics from the University of Cambridge, and his MA and PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.
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Bahrain Moving toward Implementation of U.N. SDGs
Bahrain recently hosted the sixth meeting of the interagency and expert group on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the successor to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gathering international experts from dozens of countries and U.N.
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Effective Investment in Gulf Think Tanks
The concept of think tanks flourished in the west during the twentieth century after the establishment of the world’s first think tank in the United Kingdom during the early nineteenth century (RUSI).
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Bahrain Beckons Tourists as It Diversifies Its Economy
Augustine of Hippo once remarked: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” In the last few years, the Bahraini government has launched a multipronged strategy to ensure that the kingdom’s page is more frequently read by the world’s travelers.
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Aramco IPO Could Improve its Governance and Management
This marks the start of a new weekly feature in which Omar Al Ubaydli answers questions on economics.
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UAE Labour Mobility Reforms Create Winners and Losers
In 2011, the UAE dramatically reformed its kafala system by allowing migrant workers with expiring contracts to change employers without the initial sponsor’s permission.
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We Must Experiment to Move Economics Forward in the Middle East
From the days of antiquity, through to the middle of the twentieth century, economics was largely a deductive and narrative discipline.
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The Economics of Migrant Workers in the GCC
The presence of large migrant communities has made the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries a lightning rod for an immigration debate.