Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Mehmet Tosun

Author

Mehmet Tosun
Professor, University of Nevada, Reno

Dr. Tosun is the Barbara Smith Campbell Distinguished Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He is also a Professor of Economics and the Director of International Programs in the College of Business. He is a research fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), an affiliate research fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a research fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF) for Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey, and a fellow at the Global Labor Organization (GLO). He is an Associate Editor of Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. He is on the journal editorial board of Migration Letters and the journal program committee of Przeglad Organizacji (Organization Review) in Poland. He also serves on the board of the Reno Philharmonic Association and the Ozmen Institute for Global Studies at UNR. Dr. Tosun received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. His research interests and expertise include public finance (particularly tax policy), regional economics, and economics of population and demography. He has published in such journals as the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Oxford Economics Papers, National Tax Journal, Economics Letters, International Tax and Public Finance, Journal of Regional Science, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. He has done consulting for a number of national and international agencies, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Dr. Tosun received a number of awards including the Graduate Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Business in 2019, the Global Engagement Award from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2018, the Dean’s Research Professorship Award in 2013, the Best Researcher of the Year Award from Beta Gamma Sigma (an international business honor society) in 2009, and the Middle East Economic Association’s Ibn Khaldun Prize in 2005. He was also the local organizer of the 72nd Annual Congress of the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) which was held in Lake Tahoe in 2016, and the Anniversary Chair of the National Tax Association's 100th Anniversary Conference in 2007.

Content by this Author

Taxation in MENA: composition, trends and policy options

Governments in the Middle East and North Africa face great uncertainty in estimating the ramifications of the pandemic for their tax revenues in the coming years. Using both the most recent available data and historic data from the 2008 global recession, this column analyses the impact that Covid-19 may have on taxation in the region and outlines options for tax policy reform.

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Beyond job creation: how can Egypt’s gender gap in work be closed?

More than 2 million jobs are needed each year to absorb new entrants into Egypt’s labour market and raise the country’s employment rate. The job challenge is even more acute for women, whose labour force participation remains low despite recent gains in education. This column reports on the second Development Dialogue, an ERF–World Bank Group joint initiative, which brought together students, scholars, policy-makers and private sector leaders at the American University in Cairo to consider how the country’s gender gap in work can be closed.

Digitalisation, global value chains and regional integration in MENA & SSA

Participation in global value chains is vital for countries pursuing structural transformation and inclusive economic development. This column summarises new evidence on how much production processes have been globalised in Africa and the Middle East relative to other regions; whether this process has taken place with partners within or outside the region; and whether it has taken place more in manufacturing or services.

How trade policy can reduce MENA’s cereal import vulnerability

Heavy dependence on imported cereals, combined with climate change, water scarcity and geopolitical uncertainty, continues to threaten food resilience across MENA. This column explains how an inclusive trade policy can play a key role in making the region’s food security less vulnerable to shocks.

The political economy of algorithms in the Middle East

The Middle East is entering a new political-economic era – one in which algorithms, data and artificial intelligence may become as strategically important as oil once was. Across the region, governments are investing heavily in digital infrastructure, smart governance and AI-driven economic transformation. This column outlines how AI and algorithmic governance are reshaping power, inequality and state capacity in the region.

The risks of a two-speed AI economy in MENA

Much of the debate about artificial intelligence in the Middle East and North Africa focuses on how many jobs it will replace. As this column explains, the more important challenge is that the new technology is likely to create a two-speed labour market, where countries with the capacity to invest in digital infrastructure and skills move rapidly ahead while others struggle to keep pace. Unless governments combine credible national reforms with targeted regional cooperation, AI could widen, not reduce, the economic divides across MENA.

From mega-investment to mega-productivity: closing MENA’s conversion gap

Across the Middle East and North Africa, governments are investing heavily in infrastructure, technology, diversification and new industries. Yet capital accumulation alone does not guarantee productivity growth. As this column argues, the region’s deeper challenge is its ‘investment-to-productivity conversion gap’: ensuring that large-scale investment translates consistently into stronger firms, technological diffusion, skills and better jobs. A different metric of success is required: not how much capital is deployed, but how much productive capability that capital leaves behind.

Sanctions and conflict: why corruption changes the equation

Why do sanctions produce such different political outcomes across the countries that have been targeted? This column reports research examining the role of pre-existing corruption in shaping the relationship between sanctions and subsequent conflict or political instability. The evidence indicates that trade sanctions are associated with higher conflict-related deaths where pre-existing corruption is high.

Why energy efficiency still struggles to attract finance in Egypt

Egypt has reduced energy subsidies and gradually adjusted domestic energy prices toward cost-recovery levels, improving the economic case for energy efficiency investments – but financing has not kept pace. Drawing on structured interviews with banks, developers and public officials, this column traces why energy efficiency projects in the country still struggle to attract capital, and sets out how a ‘financing ladder’ used elsewhere – from revolving funds to risk guarantees to green bonds – could close the gap.

The weak bread chain: cereal supply risks in six MENA economies

The Middle East and North Africa is one of the most food-import-dependent regions of the world, particularly for staple cereals such as barley, maize and wheat, and particularly in six countries – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. As this column reports, diversifying import sources has become an essential strategy for strengthening food security and improving resilience to geopolitical and climate-related disruptions.




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