Bibliography — Israel’s Economy

June 2025

CIE has compiled the following list of books and articles to guide understanding of Israel’s economy.

Books

Abramitzky, Ran. The Mystery of the Kibbutz: Egalitarian Principles in a Capitalist World. Princeton University Press, 2018.

Aharoni, Yair. The Israeli Economy: Dreams and Realities. London: Routledge, 1991, 2013.

Aronoff, Myron J., and Ira Sharkansky. Political Economy of Israel. Routledge, 2017.

Audit Union of the Workers Agricultural Cooperative Societies Ltd. The Palestine Agricultural Economy Under War Conditions. Tel Aviv: 1944.

Auhagen, Hubert. Beitrage Zur Kenntnis Der Landes — Natur Und der Land — Wirtschaft Syriens. Berlin: 1907.

Bareli, Avi, and Nahum Karlinsky (eds.). Economy and Society in Mandatory Palestine, 1918-1948. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2003.

Ben-Basaṭ, Avi. The Israeli Economy, 1985-1998: From Government Intervention to Market Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.

Ben-Porath, Yoram. The Israeli Economy: Maturing Through Crises. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Eisenstadt, Shmuel N. The Absorption of Immigrants: A Comparative Study Based Mainly on the Jewish Community in Palestine and the State of Israel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954.

Fayler, Gîl. From Boycott to Economic Cooperation: The Political Economy of the Arab Boycott of Israel. London: Routledge, 1998.

Gavron, Daniel. The Kibbutz: Awakening From Utopia. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.

Halevi, Nadav, and Ruth Klinov-Malul. The Economic Development of Israel. New York: Praeger, 1968.

Himadeh, Said B. Economic Organization of Palestine. American University of Beirut, 1938.

Horowitz, Dan, and Moshe Lissak. Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.

Jorisch, Avi. Thou Shalt Innovate: How Israeli Ingenuity Repairs the World. Jerusalem: Gefen House, 2018.

Joyner, Christopher. In Boycott and Blacklist: A History of Arab Economic Warfare Against Israel. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986.

Katz, Yaakov, and Amir Bohbot. The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower. New York: St. Martin’s, 2017.

Khalidi, Raja. Arab Economy in Israel. Routledge, 2018.

Kurland, Samuel. Cooperative Palestine: The Story of the Histadrut. New York: National Committee for Labor Palestine, 1947.

Leviatan, Uri, Hugh Oliver, and Jack Quartet (eds.). Crisis in the Israeli Kibbutz: Meeting the Challenge of Changing Time. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, 1998.

Maron, Asa, and Michael Shalev. Neoliberalism as a State Project: Changing the Political Economy of Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Metzer, Jacob. The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine. Cambridge University Press,1998.

Michaely, Michael. Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development of Israel. Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development. Praeger, 1968.

Muenzner, G. Jewish Labour Economy in Palestine. London: Victor Gollancz, 1945.

Nitzan, Jonathan, and Shimshon Bichler. The Global Political Economy of Israel. London: Pluto Press, 2002.

Organski, A.F.K. The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in U.S. Assistance to Israel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Owen, Edward. A History of Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Owen, Roger (ed.). Studies in the Economic and Social History of Palestine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London: Macmillan, 1982.

Patinkin, Don. The Israel Economy: The First Decade. Jerusalem: Falk Project for Economic Research in Israel, 1960.

Plessner, Yakir. The Political Economy of Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Razin, Assaf. Israel and the World Economy: Power of Globalization. Cambridge: MIT, 2018.

Razin, Assaf, and Efraim Sadka. The Economy of Modern Israel: Malaise and Promise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Richards, Alan, and John Waterbury. A Political Economy of the Middle East: State, Class, and Economic Development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990.

Rivlin, Paul. Economic Policy and Performance in the Arab World. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001.

Rivlin, Paul. The Israeli Economy From the Foundation of the State Through the 21st Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Rivlin, Paul. The Israeli Economy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.

Rosenberg, David. Israel’s Technology Economy: Origins and Impact. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Ruppin, Arthur. The Agricultural Colonisation of the Zionist Organization in Palestine. London: 1926.

Russell, Raymond, Robert Hanneman, and Shlomo Getz (eds.). The Renewal of the Kibbutz: From Reform to Transformation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.

Schnell, Izhak, Michael Sofer, and Drori Israel. Arab Industrialization in Israel: Ethnic Entrepreneurship in the Periphery. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1995.

Seikaly, Sherene. Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.

Senor, Dan, and Saul Singer. Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. New York: Twelve, 2009.

Shalev, Michael. Labour and the Political Economy in Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Sharett, Yaakov (ed.). The Reparations Controversy: The Jewish State and German Money in the Shadow of the Holocaust 1951-1952. De Gruyter, 2011.

Sharkansky, Ira. The Political Economy of Israel. New York: Routledge, 1987.

Smith, Barbara. The Roots of Separatism in Palestine British Economic Policy, 1920-1929. Syracuse University Press, 1993.

Stein, Kenneth W. The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939. University of North Carolina Press, 1984 and 2004.

Sussman, Zvi. Israel’s Economy: Performance, Problems & Policies. London: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1986.

Wolffsohn, Michael. Israel, Polity, Society and Economy, 1882-1986. Humanities Press, 1987.

Articles

Abramovitch, Z., “Wartime Development of the Arab Economy in Palestine,” Palestine Yearbook, 1 (1944‑1945): 130-144.

Almor, Tamar, “Dancing as Fast as They Can: Israeli High-Tech Firms and the Great Recession of 2008,” Thunderbird International Business Review, 53, 2 (2011): 195-208.

Arnon, Arie, “Israeli Policy Towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories: The Economic Dimension 1967-2007,” Middle East Journal, 61, 4 (2007): 573-595.

Bahar, Dany, “Delivering on Economic Prosperity in Israel: How Monopolies Are Hampering the ‘Start-Up Nation,’” Brookings Institution, May 4, 2016.

Bahar, Dany, and Natan Sachs, “How Much Does BDS Threaten Israel’s Economy?” Brookings Institution,January 26, 2018.

Bart, Roni, “Israel and American Aid: Continue Forward or Reverse Course,” Strategic Assessment, 10, 1 (June 2007).

Bental, Benjamin, et al., “Ethnic and Gender Earning Gaps in a Liberalized Economy: The Case of Israel,” Social Science Research, 63 (March 2017): 209-226.

Bercovici, Elisa Gotesman, et al., “Effects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the Israeli Economy,” Quality-Access to Success, 20, 2 (March 2019): 61-66.

Chalamish, Efraim, “Foreign Investment in Israel’s Strategic Industries,” Begin-Sadat Center, 2017.

Chenery, Hollis B., and Michael Bruno, “Development Alternatives in an Open Economy: The Case of Israel,” The Economic Journal, 72, 285 (March 1962): 79-103.

Clark, A.P.S., “Commerce, Industry, and Banking,” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 164, Harry Vitteles and Khalil Totah (eds.), Philadelphia (November 1932): 95-107.

Cohen, Erez, “The Rise in Israel’s Real Estate Prices: Sociodemographic Aspects,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 1 (February 2018): 108-127.

Eckstein, Zvi, “Maintaining a Thriving Economy in the Shadow of Terror,” Jerusalem Brief, 7 (2007).

Elran, Meir, Eran Yashiv, Muhammed Abu Nasra, and Alon Rieger, “Status Report on Implementation of the Five-Year Economic Development Plan for the Arab Minority,” INSS Insight, 900, February 21, 2017.

Eran, Oded. “Israel’s Public Debate Over Natural Gas: Future Confrontations,” INSS Insight, 438, June 26, 2013.

Evans, Michael K., “An Econometric Model of the Israeli Economy, 1952-1965,” Econometrica, 38, 5 (September 1970): 624-660.

Even, Shmuel, and Oded Eran, “The Natural Gas Revolution in Israel,” Institute for National Security Studies, December 31, 2013.

Federbush, Marjorie S., and Jerome C. Muys, “Israel and Water — (What’s Next for the) ‘Turn-Around Nation’: How Israel’s Leadership in Advanced Water Technologies Can Enhance Global Economic Growth and Diplomatic Relations,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 34, 6 (2012): 309-321.

Flug, Karnit, “Policy Analysis at the Bank of Israel,” in Policy Analysis in Israel, Gila Menahem and Amos Zehavi (eds.), Bristol, Bristol University Press (2016): 141-152.

Forman, Geremy, “Settlement of Title in the Galilee: Dowson’s Colonial Guiding Principles.” Israel Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3: 61-83.

Freedman, Robert O., “The Changing Political Economy of Israel: From Agricultural Pioneers to the ‘Silicon Valley’ of the Middle East,” in Israel’s First Fifty Years, Robert O. Freedman (ed.), Gainesville, University of Florida Press (2000): 197-218.

Freedman, Robert O., “The Israeli Economy,” in Contemporary Israel: Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Security Challenges, Boulder, CO, Westview Press (2009): 159-172.

Gilbar, Gad G., “The Growing Economic Involvement of Palestine With the West, 1865-1914,” in Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period, David Kushner (ed.), Jerusalem, Yad Ben-Zvi (1986): 188-210.

Gottheil, Fred, “Arab Immigration Into Pre-State Israel: 1922-1931,” Middle Eastern Studies (1973): 315-324.

Gross, Nachum T., “The Economic Policy of the Mandatory Government of Palestine,” Research in Economic History (1984): 143-185.

Gross, Nachum T., and Jacob Metzer, “Public Finance in the Jewish Economy in Interwar Palestine,” Research in Economic History, 3 (1978): 87-159.

Hadas, Efrat, and Yoav Gal, “Inter-Sector Water Allocation in Israel, 2011-2050: Urban Consumption Versus Farm Usage,” Water and Environment Journal, 28, 1 (2014): 63-71.

Halevi, Nadav, “The Political Economy of Absorptive Capacity: Growth and Cycles in Jewish Palestine Under the British Mandate,” Middle Eastern Studies, 19 (October 1983): 456-469.

Hasanein, Haisam, “Egypt and Israel’s Growing Economic Cooperation,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, November 2, 2016.

Hassid, Samuel, “Developments in the Residential Energy Sector in Israel,” Advances in Building Energy Research, 5, 1 (2011): 71-79.

Kay, Avi, “From ‘Altneuland’ to the New Promised Land: A Study of the Evolution and Americanization of the Israeli Economy,” Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 24, Nos. 1-2 (2012): 99-128.

Khalaf, Isa, “The Effect of Socioeconomic Change on Arab Societal Collapse in Mandate Palestine,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (February 1997): 93-112.

Kleiman, E., “The Place of Manufacturing in the Growth of the Israel Economy,” Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1967): 226-248.

Kreinin, Mordechai, “A Controlled Inflation in Israel 1949-1954,” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 64, No. 2 (1956).

Lockman, Zachary, “Railway Workers and Relational History: Arabs and Jews in British Mandate-Ruled Palestine,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (1993): 601-627.

Luft, G., “Palestine’s Economy, Post War: The Country’s Productivity and World Markets,” Commentary, 4 (July 1947): 52-57.

Maman, Daniel, “The Social Organization of the Israeli Economy: A Comparative Analysis,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1998): 87-102.

Maman, Daniel, and Zeev Rosenhek, “The Institutional Dynamics of a Developmental State: Change and Continuity in State-Economy Relations in Israel,” Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 47, No. 3 (2012): 342-363.

Mandelkern, Ronen, “The New Economic Policy of 1962: How Israeli Economists Almost Changed the Israeli Economy,” Israel Studies Review, Vol. 31, No. 2 (2016): 41-60.

Metzer, Jacob, “Some Perspectives on the Israeli Economy: Stocktaking and Looking Ahead,” Israel Studies, 19 (Summer 2014):133-161.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Measuring and Assessing Well-Being in Israel,” Paris, OECD Publishing, 2015.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, “OECD Economic Surveys: Israel 2023,” Paris, OECD Publishing, 2023.

Perez, Nahshon, “The Privatization of Jewishness in Israel (or, on Economic Post-Zionism),” Israel Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2013): 273-289.

Plaut, Steven, “Israel’s Socialist Dreams vs. Capitalist Realities,” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2016): 1-12.

Razin, Eran, and Dan Scheinberg, “Immigrant Entrepreneurs From the Former USSR in Israel: Not the Traditional Enclave Economy,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2001): 259-276.

Riemer, S., “Israel: 10 Years of Economic Dependence,” Oxford Economic Paper, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1960).

Rivlin, Paul, “The Kushner Plan: Economics or Politics, Which Comes First?” Dayan Center, July 29, 2019.

Rivlin, Paul, “The Significance of Gas in the East Mediterranean,” Dayan Center, October 9, 2013.

Rivlin, Paul, “Two Middle Eastern Inflations: Israel and Turkey 1980-2001,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (November 2003): 211-235.

Rosenhek, Zeev, and Michael Shalev, “The Political Economy of Israel’s ‘Social Justice’ Protests: A Class and Generational Analysis,” Contemporary Social Science, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2014): 31-48.

Sadan, Ezra, “How Is Israel’s Economy Affected by the Security Situation?” Jerusalem Issue Brief, Vol. 4, No. 11 (December 19, 2004).

Schnell, Izhak, and Michael Sofer, “Embedding Entrepreneurship in Social Structure: Israeli-Arab Entrepreneurship,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 27 (2003): 300-318.

Schnell, Izhak, Itzhak Benenson, and Michael Sofer, “The Spatial Pattern of Arab Industrial Markets in Israel,” Geography Department, Tel Aviv University, 1999.

Sharabi, Moshe, “Political Economy and Work Values: The Case of Jews and Arabs in Israel,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2014): 503-516.

Sharaby, Linda, “Israel’s Economic Growth: Success Without Security,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 3 (September 2002).

Solomon, Shoshana, “From 1950s Rationing to Modern High-Tech Boom: Israel’s Economic Success Story,” The Times of Israel, April 18, 2018.

Stein, Kenneth W., “The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939,” Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (April 1984): 190-205.

Stein, Kenneth W., “One Hundred Years of Social Change: The Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,” in New Perspectives of Israeli History: The Early Years of the State, Laurence Silberstein (ed.), New York University Press (1991): 57-81.

Stein, Kenneth W., “Palestine’s Rural Economy, 1917-1939,” Studies in Zionism, Vol. 8, No. 1 (1987): 25-49.

Stein, Kenneth W., “Peasant Destitution and Rural Change: Contributing Causes to the 1936-1939 Arab Disturbances in Palestine,” in Peasant Politics and Rural Violence in the Recent History of the Middle East, Farhad Kazemi and John Waterbury (eds.), University Presses of Florida (1991): 143-170.

Sussman, Zvi, “The Determination of Wages for Unskilled Labor in the Advance Sector of the Dual Economy of Mandatory Palestine,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (October 1973): 95-111.

Weiner, Dotan, and Franz Fuerst, “The Dynamics of House Prices in Israel and the Effect of the Investor’s Fear Gauge,” Journal of Housing Research, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2017): 95-118.

Zelekha, Yaron, Eyal Sharabi, and Ohad Bar-Efrat, “Trade, Institutions, and Religion: The Effect of the Jewish Diaspora on Israel’s Foreign Trade,” Applied Economics Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 2 (2012): 111-137.

Zilberfarb, Ben-Zion, “From Boom to Bust: The Israeli Economy 1990-2003,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 2 (April 2006): 221-233.

Zilberfarb, Ben‐Zion, “From Socialism to Free Markets: The Israeli Economy 1990-2003,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 1 (January 2005).

Zilberfarb, Ben‐Zion, “The Effects of the Peace Process on the Israeli Economy,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn 1994): 84-95.

Zilberfarb, Ben‐Zion, “The Israeli Economy in the 1990s: Immigration, the Peace Process, and the Medium‐Term Prospects for Growth,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Autumn 1996): 1-12.