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How a 14th-century Arab thinker influenced Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy

3 March 2018

9:00 AM

3 March 2018

9:00 AM

 

At a press conference in October 1981, Ronald Reagan quoted Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) in support of what is known as supply-side economics. Although the 14th- century politician and thinker wrote extensively about economics and was almost unique among medieval Arab writers in so doing, it is quite ‘marvellous’ writes Robert Irwin, the author of a new intellectual biography of this famous North African, that he ‘should have anticipated American Republican party fiscal policy’.

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