After fourteen years of war and the toppling of the Assad regime on December, 8th 2024, Syria faces an unparalleled reconstruction task. One third of the country’s capital stock is damaged or destroyed, and the estimated rebuilding bill accumulated to hundreds of billions of dollars. The World Bank’s “best estimate” is about $216 billion   (roughly ten times of Syria’s 2024 GDP), while other assessments put it as high as $250–400 billion. Syria’s economy has contracted sharply; real GDP fell...

When students walk into an introductory economics class at GU-Q, they expect to study economics, the science of how free individuals make choices in a world of scarcity. Instead, many of us encounter something closer to policy science: equations, fiscal multipliers, and government-centered models that assume intervention as the default. Week after week, we plot aggregate demand, analyze “market failures,” and discuss why the state should tax or spend. But where are the economists who warned...

I face at once both love and war, Heartbreak’s wound, and bombs that roar. In Katara’s air I stand and see, Dafna towers haunting me. I...