Economists who studied the reasons for the low per capita growth of GDP in developing countries that rely on revenues from abundant natural resources, (called ‘resource curse’), found it was actually caused not by high exchange rates, but by wrongly conceived economic policies over a long period of time. We will visit this point again at the end of the paper. Meanwhile, and unt
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Summary Context Iraq, particularly the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I), has become host to a significant population of refugees after decades of regional and domestic conflict, compounded by the activities of the the group known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Syrian civil war, and political turbulence in countries l
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The ongoing discourse on Iraq’s 2021 draft Federal Budget raises concerns. The draft has been substantially revised by the Parliament’s Financial Committee in a way that would keep Iraq within its current “business as usual” status and neglect the long-time needed reforms. In particular, there is no indication that the Financial Committee has introduced any structural changes o
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In-Depth Research & Reports by Ahmed Tabaqchali The Iraqi government plans to respond to the financial crises in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by addressing the root causes of Iraq’s vulnerability to external shocks. The government has laid out a plan, known as the White Paper, which aims to fix the fault lines of the economy and by extension, the political sys
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Despite the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) agreeing a deal over its 2021 budget on December 20, the road to parliamentary approval may be bumpy, market participants told Debtwire. “Parliament has yet to approve [the budget], there is significant opposition to the KRG provisions there and so the deal could be held up, delayed or not implemented
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