Iran: Down, but not out

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first became President of Iran, in August 2005, the country’s
economy has gone from bad to worse. Iran now ranks near the bottom – 144 out of 183 countries
– in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2012, an authoritative report that measures the vitality of free markets and the ease of doing business.

For decades, the Iranian economy has been cobbled together by religious-bureaucratic regimes that have
employed mandates, regulations, price controls, subsidies, a great deal of red tape, and a wide variety of other interventionist devices, in an attempt to achieve their goals. It’s all been kept afloat – barely afloat – by oil revenues.

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