Middle Eastern and African economies
Studies of the economies of Iran, Israel, Turkey, the Gulf states, Egypt, North Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Africa as a whole.
Start here
- The Dragon's GiftDeborah Brautigam, 2009
- Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab StatesAdam Hanieh, 2011
- Money, Markets, and MonarchiesAdam Hanieh, 2018
- African Economic DevelopmentChristopher Cramer, John Sender, Arkebe Oqubay, 2020
- A Political Economy of the Middle EastAlan Richards, John Waterbury, 1990
What China actually does in Africa, from field research, against Western myths.
A class analysis of the Gulf states that rejects the standard rentier-state view.
How the Gulf states became central to the Middle East's political economy after 2011.
A challenge to donor orthodoxy on how African economies should develop.
Egypt is the anchor case throughout; the standard textbook on regional state-business relations.
The Rawlings structural adjustment, the reference case for African reform.
The earlier survey: nationalisation, war financing and the bonyad economy.
How informal credit, trust networks and trade finance work when the banking system does not.
Petrodollar recycling and the boom-bust cycle Gulf investors keep repeating.
Academic account of the post-2001 reform programme and its unwinding.
Ghana as lead exhibit in the case for African growth turnarounds.
The wider economy: labour markets, defence spending, inflation and stabilisation.
Former finance minister on subsidies, privatisation and the rial.
How business associations and state elites actually bargain across the region.
The standard survey: bonyads, IRGC commercial holdings, subsidies and sanctions.
Insider account of the cement, floriculture and leather sectors by the official who ran the policy.
Sovereign funds, diversification plans and the limits of the rentier bargain.
Operator-facing handbook on governance and growth constraints across the continent.
The sceptical case: the tech sector is an enclave, not an economy.
Firm-level evidence on politically connected business; Egypt is the core case.
Technological learning and catch-up; the theory behind Ethiopia's industrial parks.
Colonial economism and the debt-and-cotton origins of the modern Egyptian economy.
Dated but the clearest treatment of the settler-to-Kenyan capital handover.
Morocco against Tunisia: why business lobbies formed differently and what it did to reform.
Ethiopia's economy sector by sector: history, foreign exchange, agriculture and land.