Conference on MENA Economies

The future course of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has irretrievably changed since January 2011 with the beginning of the Arab spring. While political, economic and social transformation seems inevitable in countries in the region, each country has its own specificities and characteristics which will heavily weigh on the process and the eventual outcome. The Conference on MENA Economies, through a set of policy relevant papers, aims to highlight the common features of these economies, their inter-connections as well as their specific characteristics. The Conference will focus specifically, but not exclusively, on the three largest economies in the region, namely, Egypt, Iran and Turkey and their inter-relationships, and provide recommendations on elements that need to be taken into account going forward. This is particularly relevant as the global economy is also witnessing significant changes which, along with the changing policy and political orientations of individual MENA countries, are quite certain to lead to substantial changes in the relations among countries of the MENA region.

With the above broad aims in mind, we are organizing a conference on MENA Economies to be held on 2013, June 21-22 in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference will be hosted by Istanbul Bilgi University.

The conference will focus on themes including growth prospects and income inequalities, monetary and fiscal policy design and business cycles, and forecasting key economic aggregates. Political Economy of the region will constitute another important focus area of the conference. All contributions are expected to offer an empirical analysis that would provide some recommendations to a specific problem that policy makers may be facing.

We are pleased to invite submissions of proposals according to the outline given in Main Themes. Previously published papers or those accepted for publication may not be submitted.