(This event was organised by MEI’s Political Economy Research Cluster, as part of its quarterly public talks series.)

Abstract

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is under a heightened pressure from both hardliners and people, despite some progresses that his administration’s made over the last five years in the office. In this lecture, the speaker first examined the economic legacy of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and then compared it with the economic policy and performance of the new government in office to see whether he had been able to keep its promises in injecting new impetus into the Iranian economy, which was suffering from structural imbalances and eight years of misguided populist policies under, as well as from external sanctions. Participants also saw how far the conflict over resources may develop in future considering the path of main factors and drivers of macroeconomic trends.