Take Home Exam
1. What are "asymmetries of information" and why may they hinder economic development? Try in your answer to discuss Stiglitz, Arab Human Development reports, the need of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa to attract foreign investment and technology, and - this may stretch your imagination - how Galal Amin could have used the term to describe certain Egyptian phenomena he wrote about in What Ever Happened to the Egyptians?
2. Discuss the arguments concerning oil and other natural resource "windfalls." To what can they really explain either the economic stagnation or the freedom "deficit" of the MENA region?
3. The World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the EU, and the US government all emphasize the need of the MENA governments to reform themselves politically as well as to engage in economic reforms for development. To what extent is "the Washington Consensus" still a useful shorthand definition of the reforms to be undertaken? To what extent is it being superseded by other reform proposals, such as "the Barcelona Consensus" and Arab Human Development reports?