Economic Research Forum (ERF)
Founded: 1993
Head: Dr. Heba Handoussa, Managing Director
Address:
Telephone : 202-3370810, 3485553,
7485553, 7602882
Facsimile: 202-3616042, 7616042
E-mail: erf@idsc.gov.eg
Web site: www.erf.iorg.eg
Institutional
framework:
Non-governmental,
Regional
Working Languages:
Arabic,
English
Areas of
activity:
Humanities and social sciences: Economics
Number of
staff:
Staff total: 18
Library
holdings:
Number of library volumes: 5,000
The Economic
Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey (ERF) was created in
June 1993 with assistance from the Arab Fund for Economic and Social
Development, the European Commission, the Fort Foundation, the IDRC Canada, the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the
World Bank to meet the need for closer interaction between the regional
economic research constituency, the decision-making community and the interest
groups of civil society. ERF'S mission is to provide an institutional mechanism
to initiate and fund policy-relevant research, to disseminate the results of
research activity to scholars, policymakers and the business community and to function
as a resource base for researchers through its database and documentation
library.
Organizational
structure:
ERF has an
interactive organizational structure composed of
the following:
- Board of
Trustees: 13 members, with a maximum of four
donor institutions represented, seven non-donor members
elected by ERF'S Research Fellows and two members
appointed by the Board for regional balance. The Board
appoints the Managing Director, sets policies and procedures
and approves the selection of Fellows and the annual
Programme of Work and Budget,
- Advisory
Committee: Nine members are appointed by the
Board of
Trustees to advise the Managing Director on
substantive issues and to screen nominations for ERF
affiliations.
- Research
Fellows: Currently 101 in number, these are
engaged in front-line research in their areas of specialization,
with published output in refereed journals and books,
- Senior
Associates: Currently totaling 25, these are senior
professionals nominated by peers and approved by the
Board of Trustees. They are non-voting members of the ERF
constituency.
- Research
Associates: Currently totaling 35, these are
nominated by peers, screened by ERF'S Advisory Committee
and approved by the Board of Trustees. They are nonvoting members
of the ERF constituency.
- Secretariat:
Administers all ERF programmes and provides technical
and operational support for ongoing activities. Work is organized under four
headings: Conferences, Workshops and Grants; Publications and Dissemination; Databank,
Documentation and Reference Library; and Research and Capacity-Building Programmes, The Administrative and Financial Division support
all activities,
R and D
activities/schemes:
ERF'S research
agenda includes the following areas: - The Changing Role of the State: Property
rights and the new institutional economics; market failure and transaction
costs; state intervention and efficiency; markets and regulation; the changing
size and role of the public sector; industrial policy, technology acquisition
and dynamic comparative advantage.
- Financial
Market Development: Financial sector reform and macroeconomic performance; constraints
on the development of capital markets; analysis of the tax environment; capital
controls and financial regulations; non-bank financial intermediaries; monetary
and exchange rate policy; corporate sources of (nance;
impact cf stock market development on ledt-to-equity ratio; microanalysis of the relationship
between firms and their hanks,' integration of regional equity markets with
international markets.
-
Liberalization of Trade and Foreign Investment: Effect of global trends in
multilateral and bilateral trade liberalization on the region's economies; interregional
and international trade prospects under alternative options for trade
agreements; appropriate strategies to promote export orientation; trends and
determinants of foreign direct investment flows across the region; the future
role of joint venture projects and of free zones in the region.
- Industrial
Policy: Import substitution versus export-led growth; incentives for industrial
deepening; exchange rate policy; nominal and effective rates of protection; industrial
organization and industrial relations; wage determination and the role of labor
unions; role of the state in industrial zoning, credit availability, quality
standards and technology transfer. - Labor Markets and Human Resource
Development: Unemployment, open and disguised; relationship between public and
private employment; public-private wage differentials; effects of public
employment practices and labor legislation on employment decisions; labor
migration; economics of education, returns to education and training. - The
Informal and Small-scale Enterprise Sector: Size and Structure of major sub
sectors of informal activity; employment, incomes and work conditions; nature
and linkages between informal and formal enterprises and means to promote
subcontracting relationships; methods to upgrade the traditional apprenticeship
system and extension services; the mobilization of savings and credit delivery
mechanisms for the small-scale sector.
- Science and
Technology Policy: Role of arms, universities and state agencies in
accumulating scientist and terminological capabilities; impact of specify
technologies (for example information technology) on economic development',
the role of bands and other organizations in financing new
technologies; costs of capital in introducing new
technologies; impact of the
property rights on the technological and economic
development of the region.
- Information
Technology and Data Access: Impact of
information technology (IT) on business transformation and
inter-organizational relations; the impact of emerging
information technologies on trade and regional cooperation;
IT and the
changing boundary of the firm; IT's
impact on
interorganizational relations; implications
for industrial
restructuring.
- Lessons from
framework for export takeoff relationship between trade and
industrial policy.. technology and management
for productivity
growth; civil service organization and legislative framework;
government/business dialogue; the mobilization of savings
and productive investment; selective state intervention in markets.
Training
activities:
Recent
training activities include a workshop on ''Poverty
Alleviation
and Human Resource Development:
Methodological
Techniques on the Use of Household
Surveys'; held
at
during 5-13 July 2000.
Publications:
Non-recurrent: Working papers and conference
proceedings.
Recurrent:
- Forum
Newsletter (quarterly in English and Arabian;
- Economic
Trends in the MENA Region (Every two years).
On//ne material:
- Forum
Newsletter',
- Online
search of the Library and the Research Index;
- Selected
publications and abstracts.
Main research
facilities/equipment available:
The Data,
Documentation and Reference Library at ERF is a
full-fledged operation with a wide and growing selection of
over 5,000 books, periodicals, publications and references
provided or prepared by national, regional and international
institutions and individuals and covering each of the topics
and sub topics of interest to ERF'S research themes. The
fully automated in-house library has been classifed
according to the Journal of Economic Literature to facilitate
accessibility
Information
sources: