Measuring Vulnerability to U.S. Foreign Economic
Sanctions

Focused Sanctions Reduce Costs To Business

By Hossein Askari, John Forrer, Jiawen Yang, and Tarek Hachem

Hossein Askari received his university education at MIT. He is currently Iran Professor of International Business and Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University. He has also taught at Tufts and the University of Texas at Austin. He was adviser at the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund and special adviser to the minister of finance of Saudi Arabia. His current research is focused on economic and political developments in Iran and other oil exporting countries and on Islamic economics and governance. He is also a member of the Editorial Board of this journal.

John Forrer received his Ph.D. from George Washington University and is Director of the GW Center for the Study of Globalization; Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Public Administration; Director, International Programs GW School of Business; and Assistant Adjunct Professor of International Business. He teaches courses at GW on privatization and global governance. His current research activities include the economic consequences of economic sanctions, privatization, and public-private partnerships and global governance.

Jiawen Yang received his Ph.D. from New York University and is currently Associate Professor of International Business and International Affairs at the George Washington University. He has also taught at NYU, Vanderbilt University, Beijing University, and the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing. His research on exchange rate pass-through, capital flows, China’s business environment, and economic sanctions has appeared in many academic journals and two books.

Tarek Hachem is currently pursuing his MBA at George Washington University where he is also research assistant at the GW Center for the Study of Globalization. Previously, he worked as an engineer for ICC-Gulf in Dubai UAE. He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer and Communication from the American University of Beirut.

Economic sanctions are an important instrument of U.S. foreign policy. While politicians look favorably on unilateral economic sanctions as a policy instrument, many scholars attribute significant long-term economic costs to the United States and have doubts about their effectiveness. We outline a simple approach to assess the vulnerability of target countries to sanctions in order to develop focused sanctions and reduce unnecessary costs to U.S. business, avoid the imposition of sanctions on countries when sanctions are unlikely to have the desired effects, and determine what other countries must join the United States in imposing sanctions if they are to be effective.

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