On Thursday, May 8, 2014, the Jerusalem Press Club hosted Professor Dan Ben-David, executive director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel and a senior faculty member of the department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University, who discussed some of the largest social and economic challenges facing Israel, as well as provided insights and strategic analysis of the policy options and potential solutions to the issues. Ben-David presented a first look at the Taub Center’s new Picture of the Nation 2014 (just released a day earlier, on May 7th), a publication that presents a socioeconomic snapshot of Israel in an array of social policy areas, from education and employment to poverty and the elderly.
About Picture of the Nation:
This is the second year that the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel is publishing its Picture of the Nation – an original, unique and user-friendly book of figures – that includes one figure per page accompanied by a brief explanation. The booklet provides a bird’s-eye perspective of Israel’s society and economy in several key areas: primary and secondary education, higher education, labor productivity, poverty and income inequality, the elderly, women in the labor market, Haredi employment, and health. The booklet, written by the Center’s executive director, Prof. Dan Ben-David, is based primarily on Taub Center research and highlights areas where Israel excels and those in which a change of direction is needed.
About Prof. Dan Ben-David:
Prof. Dan Ben-David serves as the Executive Director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, an independent, non-partisan, socioeconomic research institute based in Jerusalem. He is also a senior faculty member of the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University. He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago and specializes in macroeconomics, economic growth and international trade. Dan Ben-David is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) in London, a former Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has served as an advisor to the World Bank and the the World Trade Organization.
Dan Ben-David was named “Person of the Year” by the Calcalist newspaper in 2010, included among the 100 most influential people in Israel by the Haaretz-TheMarker newspaper in 2010 and 2012, and among the 50 most influential people in Israeli education by the Ha’ir newspaper in 2007. Academically, Dan Ben-David was ranked among the 1,000 most cited academic economists in the world and among the ten most cited economists in Israel during the years 1990-2000. He received the Tel Aviv University Provost’s “Best Teacher Award” in Social Sciences in 2004 and was included in the Provost’s list of the University’s best teachers in 2012.
