Analysis of a Long-Range Environmental Forecasting Model.

This thesis describes long-range forecasting models that were developed for the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa to cope with the problem of projecting important economic, political, military, and social variables over a five to twenty year range. On the basis of imperfect data that is available for these regions, this study examines the innovations introduced to handle the unstable situations found in developing areas of the world. Limited to the Middle East region, this effort undertakes a restructuring of the data base, introduces new scaling techniques for social and political concepts, and imposes a rigorous statistical analysis through different econometric techniques. Utilizing new estimated regression coefficients, a forecast simulation for several Middle East countries follows along with concluding analyses and a discussion of inherent problems present in the model. (Author)