Expats and the Labor Force

GEORGE NAUFAL is an Assistant Professor of Economics at The American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, the UAE, and a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). His primary research interests include labor economics, with an emphasis on migration and remittances. He has published widely on the Middle East and North Africa region with an emphasis on the Gulf countries. Beside his academic involvement, he is a consultant on local and regional issues. He has a PhD in Economics from Texas A&M University. ISMAIL H. GENC is currently Professor of Economics at the American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, the UAE. Professor Genc received his PhD in Economics from the Texas A&M University in December 1999. His research and teaching specialties include monetary economics and applied time series forecasting with an international focus. He was in Economics and Statistics departments at the University of Idaho, USA, as Associate Professor with tenure. He also served as Vice-President of the Southwestern Economics Association (USA), and currently sits in various editorial boards, and provides expert testimony to governmental bodies and private companies on forecast related matters, and conducts executive training and delivers public speeches on his expertise. His work has been recognized with grants and contracts as well as several awards/honors. Dr. Genc is fluent in Turkish and English.

"Despite the well-known dramatic rise in the per capita incomes, oil exports, and reserves and even in the height of buildings of the six Gulf Cooperation Council members, little is known about how those incomes, output and buildings are produced, especially in terms of the labor force. In Expats and the Labor Force, Naufal and Genc go a long way toward enlightening readers about the importance of the foreign labor force, the changing composition of that labor force, and the reasons behind it. Most importantly, they derive the implications of this dependence on foreign workers for outward remittances and the implications of these for inflation, exchange rate stability, and monetary policy. To their credit, the authors also address certain policy issues that are likely to loom in the years ahead as the ability to recruit low cost workers from abroad declines, and pressures to absorb the growing numbers of increasingly educated nationals entering the labor force continue to rise." - Jeffrey B. Nugent, professor of Economics, University of Southern California "By offering a detailed background on people and money flows in the GCC countries, Expats and the Labor Force analyzes how the Gulf region became the third most important destination. A unique contribution to migration literature in general and the Middle Eastern region in particular. This book is not only for researchers, but for general readers as well." - S. M. Ghazanfar, emeritus professor of Economics, University of Idaho

• IntroductionWhy Move to the Gulf? History of Labour Migration to the Gulf Foreign Workers and the Labour Force Remittance Outflows Macroeconomic Effects of Remittance Outflows Official versus Unofficial Remittances in the GCC Information Crisis in the Gulf Consequences