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Assem, Hoda

Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa
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Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa
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Last updated: April 14, 2024
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Hoda Assem is an Economist for the Middle East and North Africa region of the World Bank. She holds a PhD in Economics and an MSc in Analysis and Policy in Economics (APE) from the Paris School of Economics, and a joint B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and the Faculty of Economics and Political Science of Cairo University. Her main research interests include international trade and political economy.

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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Conflict and Debt in the Middle East and North Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-15) Gatti, Roberta; Bennett, Federico; Assem, Hoda; Lotfi, Rana; Mele, Gianluca; Suvanov, Ilias; Islam, Asif M.
    The global economy is in its third year of deceleration amidst declining inflation and oil prices. The MENA region grew at 1.9 percent in 2023 and is forecasted to grow at 2.7 percent in 2024. And for the first time since the pandemic, MENA oil exporters and importers will grow at similar rates. The tragedy of the conflict in the Middle East has increased uncertainty. Rising debt leaves many countries in the region exposed. This report unpacks the nature of debt in the region. Oil importers have been unable to either inflate or grow out of debt. Exchange rate fluctuations, and particularly stock flow adjustments (SFA) play a sizeable role. The report highlights the need to address debt transparency. Extrabudgetary items, especially for developing oil importers, need to be accounted for. Primary balances are key, but only to the extent that they capture the true state of government finances.
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    A New State of Mind: Greater Transparency and Accountability in the Middle East and North Africa
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022-10-05) Belhaj, Ferid; Gatti, Roberta; Lederman, Daniel; Sergenti, Ernest John; Lotfi, Rana; Mousa, Mennatallah Emam; Assem, Hoda
    The MENA region is facing important vulnerabilities, which the current crises—first the pandemic, then the war in Ukraine—have exacerbated. Prices of food and energy are higher, hurting the most vulnerable, and rising interest rates from the global tightening of monetary policy are making debt service more burdensome. Part I explores some of the resulting vulnerabilities for MENA. MENA countries are facing diverging paths for future growth. Oil Exporters have seen windfall increases in state revenues from the rise in hydrocarbon prices, while oil importers face heightened stress and risk—from higher import bills, especially for food and energy, and the depreciation of local currencies in some countries. Part II of this report argues that poor governance, and, in particular, the lack of government transparency and accountability, is at the root of the region’s development failings—including low growth, exclusion of the most disadvantaged and women, and overuse of such precious natural resources as land and water.
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    Altered Destinies: The Long-Term Effects of Rising Prices and Food Insecurity in the Middle East and North Africa
    (Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-04-06) Gatti, Roberta; Lederman, Daniel; Islam, Asif M.; Andree, Bo, Pieter Johannes; Lotfi, Rana; Mousa, Mennatallah Emam; Bennett, Federico; Assem, Hoda
    Growth is forecasted to slow down for the Middle East and North Africa region. The war in Ukraine in 2022 exacerbated inflationary pressures as the world recovered from the COVID 19 pandemic induced recession. The response by central banks to raise rates to curb inflation is slowing economic activity, while rising food prices are making it difficult for families to put meals on the table. Inflation, when it stems from food prices, hits the poor harder than the rich, thus compounding food insecurity in MENA that had been rising over decades. The immediate effects of food insecurity can be a devastating loss of life, but even temporary increases in food prices can cause long-term irreversible damages, especially to children. The rise in food prices due to the war in Ukraine may have altered the destinies of hundreds of thousands of children in the region, setting them on paths to limited prosperity. Food insecurity imposes challenges to a region where the state of child nutrition and health were inadequate before the shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic. The report discusses policy options and highlights the need for data to guide effective decision making.
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    Stages of Diversification Redux
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-02-22) Assem, Hoda; Gatti, Roberta; Lederman, Daniel
    The existing literature on development and economic diversification finds an inverted-U function between these two variables, whereby economies diversify as they grow up to a point, after which they start specializing. This paper contributes to this literature by investigating the stages of diversification over the course of development during the past 57 years. The paper emphasizes the trajectories of resource-rich and resource-poor countries, an issue that has not been covered by the extant literature. In addition, the paper studies the stages of diversification across three dimensions, namely employment, value-added, and exports. Additionally, it examines the relationship for services. Non-parametric estimations suggest a U-shaped curve between measures of economic concentration and per capita income levels, which is in line with existing evidence. However, these patterns are mainly driven by between-country rather than within-country variation, a finding that had been ignored in the existing literature. Diversification patterns also differ across resource-rich and resource-poor countries: Employment and value added in resource-rich countries are on average more concentrated at low levels of development while in resource poor countries, they are more concentrated at high levels of development. In contrast, at all levels of development, exports are more concentrated in resource-rich countries.
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    Trade and Civil Conflicts
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-06-20) Assem, Hoda
    This paper investigates the impact of civil conflicts on international trade. First, it quantifies how much civil conflicts suppress trade and explores the underlying mechanisms within a structural gravity model. Trade openness can lower the risk of civil conflicts because expected gains from international trade could discourage both governments and rebels from igniting conflicts (deterrence mechanism). Alternatively, international trade could act as a substitute for internal trade, lowering the opportunity cost of civil conflicts (insurance mechanism). This paper empirically investigates both mechanisms. Second, the paper investigates the spillovers of civil conflicts on trade for neighboring countries uninvolved in the conflict. Third, it examines if the impact of civil conflicts is contemporaneous or persistent through time. The paper uses data on violent civil conflicts and international and intra-national trade data from 142 countries to estimate a structural gravity trade model for 1989-2006. The results show that civil conflicts in a country can reduce its trade with other countries by over 40 percent. Spillovers of neighboring civil conflicts are also highly detrimental. Finally, the impact of civil conflicts is highly persistent through time and increases with the duration of the conflict.