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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
The announcement on August 15 that International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde will visit Cairo on August 22 has created considerable speculation that an IMF program will be implemented soon. While it could be merely a courtesy visit—Lagarde was after all invited by the government of Egypt and could hardly refuse without sending [...]
Over this past weekend Egypt held presidential election runoffs with official results due on Thursday, June 21. But with more than 95 percent of votes counted, the Muslim Brotherhood claims their candidate Mohamed Morsi is the winner. Meanwhile, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a constitutional annex to its March 30 military [...]
The promising Arab Spring has left North Africa in limbo. Now the task is to build a new political and economic system that is sustainable. President Barack Obama’s speech on the Middle East on May 19 outlines most of the right economic features. When communism ended two decades ago, the Soviet Union fared much more [...]
The uprising that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak has created considerable uncertainty over the future of economic policies and reforms in Egypt. Will the political transition lead to a reform-minded government or a populist one that will try to undo the recent economic reforms undertaken by the Mubarak regime? There are certainly [...]
Protests in the Middle East continue to rage even in Egypt and Tunisia, where the ruling regimes have been toppled. Throughout the region, activists and opposition leaders are demanding an overhaul of political systems. Though generalizations are difficult, it is clear that—whether the unrest is in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, or elsewhere—the [...]
Revolutions are euphoric events. Politics engage all as never before or after, and few bother to think about such mundane issues as economics, but then economic hazards will arise. Unfortunately, serious macroeconomic destabilization is likely in Egypt. The Egyptian revolution appears to be a middle-class, liberal revolution like the European revolutions of 1848 or the [...]
The recent overthrow of President Mubarak offers great hope for Egypt’s future political development. But the challenge of economic transformation will be no less important, and arguably as difficult. This challenge is viewed as one of achieving greater globalization and a greater role for markets inside Egypt. The more fundamental challenge, however, is different. Some [...]
World leaders are calling for Hosni Mubarak to either resign or to institute “political and economic” reform that will meet the demands of the demonstrators. Such calls show a large degree of ignorance about the needed economic reforms and the fact that increasing political participation may pose obstacles to reforms. While the maintenance of deeply [...]
Whoever emerges on top of the unfolding political crisis in Egypt, there is little doubt that the country is in need of fresh economic policies as well as fresh leadership. One year ago, we argued in Reengaging Egypt: Options for US-Egypt Economic Relations that the United States should pursue programs that help Egypt "create a better [...]
The demonstrations and the more recent violent clashes between the pro and anti-Mubarak factions in Tahrir Square continue unabated despite President Mubarak’s announcement on February 1 that he would not seek reelection in September. (It is also presumed that his son Gamal Mubarak will not run for the presidency.) The Mubarak concession may well have [...]