March 23, 2011
by Zeinab Sabet
In light of recent political transformation in the Middle East, this year’s ERF conference focuses on the interaction between politics, economic policies and development outcomes.
For almost two decades, the Economic Research Forum (ERF) Annual Conference has evolved to become a leading regional platform for the discussion of frontier thinking on economic development. It draws together ERF affiliates, international scholars and guests, all interacting and learning from each other. This year’s conference, held in Antalya, Turkey, is hosting around 200 participants.
The first plenary session, entitled “Democracy (Open Society) and Economic Development: The Politics of Policymaking”, revisited the relationship between the nature of political regimes, policymaking processes and development outcomes. The following questions were raised: Does the Arab region need to follow a Western model of democratic transformation? Does it take an open (democratic) society to achieve better development outcomes? Are the few cases of non-democratic regimes achieving successful development an exception and why? Is democracy inevitable once progress is made on the economic front? And what do we know about how societies become more open economically and politically? Will the uprisings across the Arab region lead to sustained democracies that result in solid and equitable development?
Speakers of first plenary session were Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Center for International Development , Samir Makdisi, American University in Beirut and John Wallis, University of Maryland.
The parallel sessions covered six broad themes, under which papers were submitted prior to the conference. Themes are as follows: macroeconomics, finance, international economics, labor and human development, microeconomic and sectoral studies, and institutional economics/governance.
Today’s second plenary session was dedicated to answer the following question: “Do Institutional Constraints on Policymakers work?” Understanding institutional reforms and their potential impact on policy became essential given the nature of the political regimes in the Arab region and the recent political uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
While Ibrahim Elbadawi, the Macroeconomic Research Department Director at the Economic Policy & Research Institute (EPRI) discussed the relation between fiscal rules, political checks and balances and democracy, Gary Milante, World Bank, presented the main findings of the World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security and Development. Lant Pritchett, Harvard University, discussed what he called the “administrative capability of the state” or the ability of the state to shape the behavior of “implementing agents”, thus ensuring its stated objectives are met.
The final plenary session session debated on “Political and Economic Transformation”. Ishac Diwan, World Bank, Mustapha Nabli, Governor Central Bank of Tunisia, and Tarik Yousef from Dubai School of Government, explored the drivers and dynamics of political and economic transformation in the a Arab region.
Read more about the ERF 17th Annual conference on the ERF blog.
At graduate school, admittedly a few decades ago, conventional wisdom had it that economics was about offering policymakers welfare-improving options – the political process and political regimes were a given. However, as time went by, it became increasingly apparent that politics shape policies; hence development outcomes and their distribution. Economic power matters, but by now it is evident that the development process is as much—if not more—about politics as about economics.
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