Abstract:

As a mature fruit deriving from a lifelong distinguished scholarly career, Joseph Zeira has written a highly valuable contribution about Israel's economy. His book is original and multidimensional, and is characterized by an intellectually remarkable effort to explain all crucial aspects of Israel's macroeconomy. In the introduction he states: "My involvement attests to my social and political preferences, but I believe that it does not influence my scientific analysis of the Israeli economy, because I am deeply concerned about the need to separate science from personal views." I am writing this review in the hope that I will be able to hold myself apart from my admiration of my excellent and didactic Macroeconomics teacher during my MA studies and from my fruitful collaboration with Joseph in writing empirical papers about Israel's economy. I aim at overcoming this challenge.