Its interesting to me how similar the trajectory of iraq and iran is. The 1980s saw both decline from the war with each other, and then they both grew steadily. Iraq even exploded upwards in the midst of the Iraq War, albeit a lot of that was simply the effects of sanctions being lifted after Saddam was gone. After 2010, Iran stagnates due to sanctions, and Iraq stagnates due to the war with ISIS and oil prices dropping.
Even that does not tell the whole story, as oil revenue is nearly half of Iraqs GDP and only 17% of Irans GDP. Iran has better underlying economic fundamentals compared to Iraq, but Iraq is able to export a *lot* more oil.
Afghanistan has unfortunately been extremely poor for the entire duration, but small differences are huge at that level. The difference between 2000 and 2012 doesn’t seem like a lot on this graph, but it was actually a 5x rise. It stagnated from 2012 to 2021 as the war heated up. Unfortunately, their economy has crashed since the Taliban took over in 2022.
heterodoxual on
It looks like Iran experienced a severe recession around 1977 or 1978, i.e. just before the revolution in 1979. Yet Iraq’s economy kept growing right up until the Iran-Iraq War started.
What were oil prices like during those years?
I think this chart could benefit from (1) removing Afghanistan and (2) adding a series for inflation-adjusted average benchmark oil price.
essuxs on
So Afghanistan has managed to take a country that was in a constant state of war, end the war, and then make the economy even worse.
Interesting how the economy noticeably grew after 2011 and then ended when the US left.
Kinggambit90 on
The biggest investment iran did was invest in it’s own refineries. They kept getting a raw deal by India and China on raw oil prices because they have limited trade partners. Refined products are way more profitable.
4 Comments
Its interesting to me how similar the trajectory of iraq and iran is. The 1980s saw both decline from the war with each other, and then they both grew steadily. Iraq even exploded upwards in the midst of the Iraq War, albeit a lot of that was simply the effects of sanctions being lifted after Saddam was gone. After 2010, Iran stagnates due to sanctions, and Iraq stagnates due to the war with ISIS and oil prices dropping.
Even that does not tell the whole story, as oil revenue is nearly half of Iraqs GDP and only 17% of Irans GDP. Iran has better underlying economic fundamentals compared to Iraq, but Iraq is able to export a *lot* more oil.
Afghanistan has unfortunately been extremely poor for the entire duration, but small differences are huge at that level. The difference between 2000 and 2012 doesn’t seem like a lot on this graph, but it was actually a 5x rise. It stagnated from 2012 to 2021 as the war heated up. Unfortunately, their economy has crashed since the Taliban took over in 2022.
It looks like Iran experienced a severe recession around 1977 or 1978, i.e. just before the revolution in 1979. Yet Iraq’s economy kept growing right up until the Iran-Iraq War started.
What were oil prices like during those years?
I think this chart could benefit from (1) removing Afghanistan and (2) adding a series for inflation-adjusted average benchmark oil price.
So Afghanistan has managed to take a country that was in a constant state of war, end the war, and then make the economy even worse.
Interesting how the economy noticeably grew after 2011 and then ended when the US left.
The biggest investment iran did was invest in it’s own refineries. They kept getting a raw deal by India and China on raw oil prices because they have limited trade partners. Refined products are way more profitable.