Publications

Government spending on defence, particularly defence R&D, can have significant economic spillovers. This column argues that the forthcoming European defence build-up must include a long-term strategy to develop high-quality human capital. Military human capital development serves a dual-purpose role: it is crucial for the modern (largely non-combat) battlefield, and also valuable for long-run productivity growth. Israel provides a good example of how military service can become a driver of innovation, by giving recruits intensive...

Since the Hamas terror attack in the Negev on October 7 and the start of the war in Gaza, there have been escalating attacks by the Houthi terror organization, disrupting navigation in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The stated aim of the organization, one of the most prominent Iranian proxies, is to harass and damage ships linked directly or indirectly to Israel, in response to Israel’s operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. However, most of the Houthi attacks so far have damaged ships that have no link to Israel. In view of the...

As we look back at 2022, we can clearly discern the acceleration of key global and internal trends that pose serious challenges to Israel’s national security and call for a revision of existing policies. Some of these trends reached a clear turning point in the course of past year, while others continued to evolve gradually, making it more difficult to question prevailing strategies, despite the dangers inherent in clinging to them. Among those processes that took a sharp turn, three stand out:

At the outset of 2022, Israel is beset by the incongruity between its military might, economic dynamism, and technological prowess, and the severity of the political, security, and internal challenges that it faces. These challenges pose an exceedingly intricate and worrying strategic threat to Israel, exacerbated by the lack of a comprehensive and farsighted strategic outlook to address them. The key challenges are threefold: First Iran, which relentlessly pursues nuclear capabilities, while steadily strengthening its ability to...

As in previous rounds of fighting against Hamas, Operation Guardian of the Walls exacted three types of economic costs: the direct military cost, reduction in economic activity, and property damage caused by the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Some of these costs are difficult to estimate, and it is thus too early to assess the full economic consequences of the operation. In addition, the parties responsible for these estimates, that is, the Ministry of Defense on the one hand and the Ministry of Finance on the other, have opposing...

The coronavirus is not about to vanish from our lives, so the quest for a one-shot silver bullet in the form of an “exit strategy” is dangerously misguided. Instead, we will have to learn to manage our lives as individuals, families, and workers under the constraints of the coronavirus; the same applies to running the country, the economy, and other aspects of society. We therefore must build an organizational structure for the sustained management of the crisis, which will include a wide range of governmental, civic, and...

The world finds itself in the midst of a major economic crisis, unprecedented in scale since the Great Depression of 1929. The financial upheaval of 2008 promptly spilled over to the real economy, generating a worldwide recession of frightening proportions. In 2009 the world economy will likely see a steep increase in unemployment, a reduction of world trade and investment, the massive shrinking of capital markets, and so on. These are the immediate manifestations of the crisis, yet we should also focus on its long term implications.