Opening Session : Opening Remarks by Co-Chairs

Historically, manufacturing has served as the primary pathway to economic development, offering strong scale economies, learning-by-doing effects, and the capacity to generate the foreign exchange necessary to import capital goods and technology. However, advances in robotization and artificial intelligence (AI) are fundamentally undermining manufacturing’s traditional role, making it increasingly skill- and capital-intensive while limiting its ability to absorb labor. Thi ...

At the Atlantic Dialogues in December 2025, I argued that a period was underway in which trade and security could no longer be analytically or practically separated. Assessments have solidified in recent months regarding the emergence of a geoeconomic world order. Geoeconomics was a gradual transition from a purely geopolitical focus on military force, to an emphasis on economics to gain competitive advantage. It is no longer a transitional phase, but an emerging structural componen ...

By mapping Iraq’s economic structure in detail, the Multiregional Social Accounting Matrix (MRSAM) sheds light on regional interdependencies and distributional dynamics, offering a critical foundation for evidence-based policy design. Key MessagesIraq is dependent on oil, but this dependence is felt unevenly. In 2013, oil accounted for nearly half of GDP, over 90% of exports, and almost all fiscal revenues, but less than 2% of jobs; benefits from oil were concentrated in Basra ...

The February 20 United States Supreme Court decision against President Donald Trump’s use of the U.S. International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to establish tariffs has led him to resort to other legal instruments. So-called U.S. reciprocal tariffs on countries set out in April 2025 were based on IEEPA, as were tariffs that allegedly punished countries for allowing fentanyl into the U.S. Trump tried to evade the constraints presented by other legal instruments that could f ...

This Paper was originally published on sciencedirect.com This paper assesses the national and regional impacts of the Marrakech–Fès highway project in Morocco using a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium (SCGE) model combined with GIS-based road network data. The analysis captures how improved connectivity alters economic performance and emissions patterns across space and time. Results show that while overall economic gains are modest, the benefits are unevenly distributed—f ...