Wednesday Research Seminar Series - Economic complexity, exports and natural resources in the Gulf Cooperation Council

We are pleased to invite you to our Wednesday Research Seminar. It will be held in-person on 20th November from 4pm at Oasis Theatre. Wednesday Research Seminar Series was launched in 2008 and has featured more than 360 presentations to date. The seminars provide a forum for researchers to share their work. Presenters include faculty from Middlesex University Dubai and other universities in the United Arab Emirates, as well as researchers from other global institutions. Simona will deliver seminar on: 

“Economic complexity, exports and natural resources in the Gulf Cooperation Council”
Simona Iammarino

Abstract

The concept of economic complexity, introduced by Hidalgo and Hausmann (2009), suggests that countries’ knowledge and capabilities can be inferred through their ability to export a wide range of products relative to the rest of the world. However, the applicability of this concept across different geographical contexts has remained largely unquestioned. We argue that the unique characteristics of natural resource dependent countries are largely disregarded. Using the Economic Complexity Index for 179 countries from 1995 to 2019, we focus on the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCCs), generally considered as high-income economies heavily reliant on oil and natural gas exports. While we find that the link between the ECI and subsequent economic growth observed across countries holds  for the GCC and other oil-dependent countries, our analysis exposes important ways in which the ECI is affected by the high dependence on oil and its price volatility.

Presenter Bios

Dr. Simona Iammarino is Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Economics and Business of the University of Cagliari, Italy; Visiting Professor at the Department of Geography & Environment of the London School of Economics (LSE); member of the Board of the LSE-Cañada Blanch Centre; affiliate faculty member at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) L’Aquila, Italy. She was Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE (2009-2022), where she acted as Head of Department (2014-2017) and academic member of the LSE Council (2016-2020). Simona’s main research interests lie in the following areas: Multinational corporations, globalisation and local economic development; Economic geography of innovation and technological change; Regional and local economic development and policy. She has published more than 70 articles in major peer-reviewed journals, two co-authored books, around 30 book chapters, and numerous working papers, policy reports and other publications. She is co-editor of the Journal of Economic Geography, member of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) Executive Group and Board and Chair of the RSA Journal Committee. Simona has a long-term experience in externally funded international research projects, and in consultancy projects for various international organisations (e.g. EU Commission, OECD, United Nations, ADB, etc.) and numerous government agencies. In 2024 Simona was awarded the “ERSA European Prize in Regional Science”, arguably the highest prize in regional science, and the “Giacomo Becattini” Prize, Italian Society of Economics and Industrial Policy (SIEPI).
https://www.unica.it/unica/page/it/simona_iammarino