The Struggle for Palestinian Hearts and Minds: Violence and Public Opinion in the Second Intifada
This paper examines how violence in the Second Intifada influences Palestinian public opinion. Using micro data from a series of opinion polls linked to data on fatalities, we find that Israeli violence against Palestinians leads them to support more radical factions and more radical attitudes towards the conflict. This effect is temporary, however, and vanishes […]
Human Resources for Science and Technology in Israel – Selected Topics (Part A)
The economic strength of any modern country is based on its ability to translate scientific knowledge and technological innovation to new products and services. This is especially relevant in the case of Israel which lacks natural resources. The basis for creating a scientific and technological knowledge base lies in the cultivation of human capital. The […]
The Israeli innovation system: An overview of national policy and cultural aspects
The goal of this overview, which was prepared by the Samuel Neaman Institute, is to examine the national policies and cultural aspects that support and lead Israeli innovation. Material for this document were gathered from various reports, documents, and articles written on the subject, so as to present a comprehensive and general picture of the […]
Terror and the Costs of Crime
This paper argues that terrorism, beyond its immediate impact on innocent victims, also raises the costs of crime, and therefore, imposes a negative externality on potential criminals. Terrorism raises the costs of crime through two channels: (i) by increasing the presence and activity of the police force, and (ii) causing more people to stay at […]
Vouchers for New Immigrants as Tools for the Job Market
Over the past two years, the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption has operated a Vouchers Project, which seeks to increase adaptation of new immigrants to the Israeli job market. Within the project’s framework, eligible immigrants receive vouchers which can be redeemed towards professional training in a program of their choice from a licensed college, as well […]
Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate
This paper relies on the variation of terror attacks across time and space as an instrument to identify the causal effects of terrorism on the preferences of the Israeli electorate. We find that the occurrence of a terror attack within three months of the elections is associated with a 1.35 percentage points increase on the […]
Do High-Skill Immigrants Raise Productivity? Evidence from Israeli Manufacturing Firms, 1990-1999 STE-WP-36
During the second part of the 1990s, the Israeli economy experienced a surge in labor productivity and total factor productivity, which was driven primarily by the manufacturing sector. This surge in productivity coincided with the full absorption and integration into the workforce of highly skilled immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The Soviet immigrants were […]
Equity and Efficiency Effects of Different Funding Arrangements for Higher Education: A Calibrated Analysis Applied to Israel
We construct a macro-model of an economy with skilled and unskilled labor, and a centralized system of higher education, calibrate it to the parameters of Israel’s economy and university system, and then use it to simulate different modes of financing higher education so as to gauge their effect on output, distribution and mobility. We find […]
Tertiary Education in Israel A New Paradigm for Policy Making
The study examines the various aspects of the existing policy on higher education and proposes a paradigm shift in order to promote academic research improve standards of instruction as well as accessibility to higher education, . The recommendations include fostering a policy of credit transfer between different types of post-secondary institutes and different programs while […]
The Jewish People Today: Between Necessity and Freedom
This essay is dedicated to dealing with two basic questions: the first focuses on the swift changes that have occurred in our time in the status of the nation and its state – from one of necessity to one of liberty, from determinism to voluntarism, from enforced identity to chosen identity – and the expected ramifications upon […]
