An edition of Is the "Surge" working? (2007)

Is the "Surge" working?

some new facts

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Last edited by ImportBot
August 23, 2011 | History
An edition of Is the "Surge" working? (2007)

Is the "Surge" working?

some new facts

There is a paucity of facts about the effects of the recent military Surge on conditions in Iraq and whether it is paving the way for a stable Iraq. Selective, anecdotal and incomplete analyses abound. Policy makers and defense planners must decide which measures of success or failure are most important, but until now few, if any, systematic analyses were available on which to base those decisions. This paper applies modern statistical techniques to a new data file derived from more than a dozen of the most reliable and widely-cited sources to assess the Surge's impact on three key dimensions: the functioning of the Iraqi state (including civilian casualties); military casualties; and financial markets' assessment of Iraq's future. The new and unusually rigorous findings presented here should help inform current evaluations of the Surge and provide a basis for better decision making about future strategy. The analysis reveals mixed evidence on the Surge's effect on key trends in Iraq. The security situation has improved insofar as civilian fatalities have declined without any concurrent increase in casualties among coalition and Iraqi troops. However, other areas, such as oil production and the number of trained Iraqi Security Forces have shown no improvement or declined. Evaluating such conflicting indicators is challenging. There is, however, another way to assess the Surge. This paper shows how data from world financial markets can be used to shed light on the central question of whether the Surge has increased or diminished the prospect of today's Iraq surviving into the future.

(cont.) In particular, I examine the price of Iraqi state bonds, which the Iraqi government is currently servicing, on world financial markets. After the Surge, there is a sharp decline in the price of those bonds, relative to alternative bonds. The decline signaled a 40% increase in the market's expectation that Iraq will default. This finding suggests that to date the Surge is failing to pave the way toward a stable Iraq and may in fact be undermining it. Keywords: Surge, Iraq, Prediction Markets, Bond Markets, Sovereign Debt.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
55

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Is the "Surge" working?
Is the "Surge" working?: some new facts
2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics
in English

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Online PDF version is a revision of print copy dated Sept. 18, 2007.

"September 14, 2007."

Includes bibliographic reference (p. 28-29).

Abstract in HTML and working paper for download in PDF available via World Wide Web at the Social Science Research Network.

Published in
Cambridge, MA
Series
Working paper series / Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics -- working paper 07-24, Working paper (Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Economics) -- no. 07-24.

The Physical Object

Pagination
[3] leaves, 55 p. :
Number of pages
55

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL24976307M
Internet Archive
issurgeworkingso0724gree
OCLC/WorldCat
644567145

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Internet Archive item record

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August 23, 2011 Created by ImportBot Imported from Internet Archive item record