An economist in Baghdad

Chris Foote an economist at the Boston Fed worked in Baghdad last year. His report makes for interesting reading. This was not your usual job for an economist.

Early on, I visit Iraq’s Central Bank, which was also destroyed by looters. Our mission is to check on the Treasure of Nimrud, a collection of ancient Assyrian jewelry that was stored in the bank’s vault for safekeeping in the early 1990s. The bank’s basement was flooded with sewage water during the looting and has only recently been drained. Our group trudges down the unlit, still slimy stairs, careful not to slip. When we reach the bottom, I see that the corner of one of the vault doors has been peeled away, as if by a giant can opener. I am told that during the postwar chaos, someone tried to open this door with a rocket- propelled grenade, incinerating himself in the process. (The lock in the door held.) The deputy head of the Central Bank jiggles a number of keys and opens another door nearby. We are happy to learn that the treasures are intact.

Most of the time, however, he is working 8 am to 11 pm trying to solve economic problems. As economic theory would predict, but many economists would deny, it’s the basic economics that has the most value added.

In many ways, the job is similar to the one I held at the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) before coming to Iraq. There the economic questions changed from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour. Baghdad is the same. What is the best way to fix Iraq’s currency? How could foreign investment help Iraq? What tariff regime should we recommend? The questions are all over the map, so I draw more from my experience teaching macroeconomics to undergraduates, and less from my own specialized research.