An authoritative economic history of Israel from its founding to the present
In 1922, there were ninety thousand Jews in Palestine, a small country in a poor and volatile region. Today, Israel has a population of nine million and is one of the richest countries in the world. The Israeli Economy tells the story of this remarkable transformation, shedding critical new light on Israel's rapid economic growth.
Joseph Zeira takes readers from those early days to today, describing how Israel's economic development occurred amid intense fighting with the Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries. He reveals how the new state's astonishing growth continued into the early 1970s, and traces this growth to public investment in education and to large foreign transfers. Zeira analyzes the costs of the Arab-Israeli conflict, demonstrating how economic output could be vastly greater with a comprehensive peace. He discusses how Israel went through intensive neoliberal economic policies in recent decades, and shows how these policies not only failed to enhance economic performance, but led to significant social inequality.
Based on more than two decades of groundbreaking research, The Israeli Economy is an in-depth survey of a modern economy that has experienced rapid growth, wars, immigration waves, and other significant shocks. It thus offers important lessons for nations around the world.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
November 23, 2021 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780691229706
- File size: 5283 KB
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780691229706
- File size: 10988 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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December 17, 2021
Zeira (economics, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) endeavors to answer the question of how Israel's economy grew, from a small Jewish settlement under the British Mandate in the 1920s, to now, when it's one of the richest countries in the world. His answer emphasizes factors like investment in public education to create "human capital"; the high educational attainment of the early post-1948 immigrants to Israel; and money coming into the economy from abroad. He also takes a positive view of governmental efforts to maintain aggregate demand. Zeira's account, though, is not entirely a story of success; he asserts that Israel's waging of wars has been costly, with drastic effects on standards of living. Zeira's largely sympathetic-to-Israel account takes a more critical stance when discussing the years since the 1970s. Here he opposes neoliberal efforts to privatize parts of the economy formerly under government control and, along with this, to establish financial austerity. He maintains that these policies have weakened public solidarity and have promoted inequality. VERDICT Readers interested in Israel's economy and economic growth more generally will find this book valuable. Zeira speaks with undoubted authority about the Israeli economy, based on two decades of research.--David Gordon, Ludwig von Mises Inst., Auburn, AL
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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