AQB Professor, Dr. Sameh Hallaq, publishes a new study on climate change and its impact on Palestinian agriculture

AQB Professor, Dr. Sameh Hallaq, publishes a new study on climate change and its impact on Palestine agriculture

Dr. Sameh Hallaq has successfully co-published with Yousuf Daas their recent paper titled “The Impact of Climate Change on the Palestinian Sectoral Reallocation of Labor” in the Journal of International Review of Applied Economics at Routledge publications. This study comes to light as a response to the Open Society University Network’s focused research on the severe and extreme climate events impacting the whole globe. The study of Dr. Hallaq and Daas concentrates on the critical overlaps of climate change and economic dynamics in Palestine, particularly, the agricultural economy. The paper examines yearly variations in climate change, such as rainfall and temperature, across the West Bank from 1999 to 2018 to assess their influence on individuals’ decisions to stay or leave the agricultural sector. The paper highlights new findings relevant to the Palestinians who work in the agricultural sector. 

In addition, Dr. Hallaq has been diligently productive this year, he also published other prominent research papers in the prestigious journals such as Wily Online Library and Routledge Journal. His paper at Wiley Online Library (Bulletin of Economic Research) titled “Class size reduction, bullying, and violent behavior: Evidence from West Bank schools.” This study has shed enough light on a less explored area of literature, which is the implications of the class size issue and its correlation to the student’s future educational attainment and wages. For that, Dr. Hallaq has investigated relevant data from the public schools as well as from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) schools. One of the study conclusions is that the West Bank economy has drastically affected by the class size which impacted the students' cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Thus, these skills influenced the labor market and later life outcomes.

His article at the Middle East Development Journal (published by Routledge) titled “School performance and child paid work: evidence from West Bank schools” explores the impact of academic attainment on child labor and goes through data collected from schools in the West Bank. The results show that increasing a child’s academic achievement is significantly associated with decreasing the probability of a child’s paid work. The findings presented in Dr. Hallaq’s research carry significant insights for educationalists and policymakers.