MESOP ARGUMENTS & ANALYSIS (II) : “Developing Long-Term Socioeconomic Strategy in Israel: Institutions, Processes & Supporting Information”

(Howard J. Shatz, Steven W. Popper, Sami Friedrich, Shmuel Abramzon, Anat Brodsky, Roni Harel, Ofir Cohen, Rand Corporation)

“Israel’s macroeconomic performance since the mid-1980s has been admirable. Growth of gross domestic product and high-technology exports, for example, has been higher than in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as a group and in the world as a whole. Even with this growth, inflation in Israel has generally run lower than in the OECD and the world since 2000. However, Israel faces a variety of economic and social challenges, including rising costs of living, differential ability across the population to participate in and benefit from the growth in the economy, and the public’s questions about the government’s role and its ability to play that role.

Faced with more-immediate, major existential challenges throughout Israel’s history, the government has not routinely developed and successfully implemented strategic responses to socioeconomic problems that demand longer-term, coordinated policy action. Effective means to respond to such longer-term challenges may require a more systematic approach to policymaking by the government.”  Read all http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR275.html?utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=rand_social&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2AMideast%20Brief