Tarek Hoteit Notebook

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Thanks to a blog item from The Big Picture , the image below shows who "owns" water resources and who "uses" it

Labels: world

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments

note: President Sleiman is on the front shirt of Haifa Wehbe, the famous Lebanese singer.

Labels: lebanon, middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments

Disturbing news... BBC News reports that some United Nations Peacekeeping forces have been sexually assaulting children in the post-conflict areas that they protect. "The victims are suffering sexual exploitation and abuse in silence", says Heather Kerr from Save the Children. This comes as an embarrassing time for the United Nations Peacekeeping forces as it celebrates its 60 year anniversary. Article notes "A 13-year-old girl described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home, and left her bleeding, trembling and vomiting on the ground." According the article, the United Nations says that it welcomes such findings and will be doing its own internal investigation. Let's hope they do something about since as of today (Monday, May 26, 2008) the United Nations head quarter in New York is closed, and their latest secretary-general briefing is from May 23 and with no information on this topic.

Labels: society, world

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

A blog or a personal journal by a journalist from the Middle East writes

It always make me smile when i see western journalists on TV talking about their experience in Iraq or the middle east. They look very serious and they talk with great confidence which makes me wonder. where do they get it from?

The author wonders why many western journalists, who do not know the Middle Eastern culture as well as the language (Arabic), think that "they know it all?"; and when they think they do, they "make fun of it and act in a superior way , making it clear for 'locals' that these journalists come from a better place." In my opinion, this is very true, but with only a single exception and that is Robert Fisk from The Independent.

Labels: media, middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

Dr M. Umer Chapra, Research Advisor at the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in Jeddah, publishes a book on Muslim civilizations, its decline and its need to reform. Dr Chapra points out that even though Muslims represent 42 percent of world population, they contribute only eight percent of the global GDP.

You can purchase the book at this link.

Labels: finance, middle east, religion

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 9:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

Arnold Kling, PhD in economics from MIT, professor, author of several books, co-editor of Econ-Log and other achievements, writes:

If I had a platoon of Ph.D students, my suggestions for research would be based on what I see as the following shortcomings in mainstream economics.

1. Too much emphasis on characterizing equilibrium conditions in mathematical terms. Not enough emphasis on the processes of economic and institutional change.

2. Too little role for entrepreneurs. In Austrian economics, entrepreneurs can be arbitrageurs/equilibrators (Kirzner) or creative destroyers (Schumpeter).

3. Too much knowledge attributed to economic agents. Mainstream economics misses the role of markets as a learning mechanism; instead, it posits economic agents who have little or nothing to learn.

4. An assumption that when incentives are poorly aligned (aka "market failure"), government involvement is necessary and sufficient to address the problem. As a result, mainstream economics does not allow for institutional entrepreneurs--entrepreneurs who develop new solutions to incentive problems.

With that as background, let me suggest some research avenues.

1. Institutional change. Douglass North has focused on this. But there is a lot more to be said about the conditions that give rise to institutional change, the actors who bring it about, and so on. The work of Vernon Smith and others on institutional design is also relevant, but I am more interested in how the market goes about creating new institutions than in how an economist would advise someone to design an institution.

2. Long-term growth. Yes, plenty of people look at this issue. But as Robert Lucas famously said, once one sees the magnitudes involved it is hard to think about anything else. And it's fair to say that de Soto, North, William Lewis, William Easterly and others have only begun to develop theories and evidence on this issue.

3. Employment fluctuations. We have much more interesting data now, with statistics on gross flows in the labor market, which are much larger than the net changes in employment and unemployment. This data ought to be exploited by researchers who think in terms of disequilibrium, market learning, and creative destruction.

4. Innovation, especially financial innovation. Again, there is a lot of room for useful work to be done in a framework that does not start by assuming away the main problems--local knowledge and the need for trial-and-error learning. Local knowledge, in my view, is the key to understanding financial markets--and why "transparency" is a false goal. Even outside the financial sector, the innovation process is poorly understood. Amar Bhide and William Baumol have made useful contributions, but there is much more useful work to be done.

Labels: education, finance

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

thanks to Zeinobia for posting this song for Fairuz on her blog.

Labels: media, middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments

The NY Times launched an interactive chart today that breaks down all the categories and percentages of spending by an average American consumer. The data is based on the Consumer Pricing Index which the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects from 84,000 prices and 200 categories, as reported by the paper, and which the Federal Reserve also uses as one instrument for its inflation-targeting policy by measuring consumer behavior and price changes. The chart, copied below from the NYTimes article, shows that 42% of the money is spent on housing, 18% on transportation, 15% on food, 6% on health care (more for the elderly), 6% on recreational activities, 6% on education and communication (cellphones), 4% on clothing and apparel (women spend more), and 3% left as miscellaneous. Recall that US savings is zero and thus not a penny is left for a dark day.





note. The actual chart is interactive and will show you more detailed segments as well as changes compared to previous year. Thanks for The Big Picture blog for making me aware of the NYTimes article.

Labels: finance, united states

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Thanks to the link from my friend Sawsan Gharib, Dr Galal Amin, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo, talks about the socio-economic and political situation in Egypt on Al-Jazeera.

Labels: finance, middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments

Reuters writes "Tea with Greenspan and his wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, was going for $11,000, according to the Web site http://rfkennedy.charitybuzz.com/viewLots.do. Bidding ends on May 7."

Interested? I wonder if Alan Greenspan, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, would offer US "mint" with it.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Labels: finance

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 5:40 PM | Permalink | Comments

Lebanese singer, Haifa Wehbe, performs in Bahrain despite opposition from religious groups. "I know my fans want me and I am there for them - I am not concerned with the other issues ", Haifa says.


(AFP Photo)

more photos of Haifa are available here

Labels: lebanon, media, middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments