An Arab Spring economics recipe: Add high food<br> prices to trade barriers, get revolutions

Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University, has recently published a book called An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies about how you can apply basic theories of economics to get the best meal for your money.

On a serious note, he tells Arabic Knowledge@Wharton, most people don't realize there is not a shortage of food, but rather too many poor people unable to pay for it. Cowen also discusses how food prices and trade barriers in the Middle East helped drive the Arab revolutions. An edited transcript of the conversation follows:

Arabic Knowledge@Wharton: You state that food is a result of capitalist supply and demand. It seems logical and simple, but people don't think about food in those terms. How did you come up with that?

Cowen: I grew up as a kid reading classical economic works by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and James Mill. Those are the origins of economics, as we all know. For obvious reasons, they're obsessed with food. That's almost all they write about because that's what the economy was about back then. If you have a background in classical economics, the notion that economics is about food comes very naturally. Maybe the world has forgotten that somewhat.

Arabic Knowledge@Wharton:Air Max