Since the 1990s, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries aimed to focus in their economic planning on diversification of their economies that are mainly dependent on oil with varying degrees depending on the country, to avoid the high fluctuations in global oil prices that cause volatility and instability in their national incomes. Applying an empirical and comparative approach for two distinguished economies out of the six GCC countries, namely United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia (SA), this study aims to use time series data over the period 1980-2014 for both countries to reflect the diversification attempts' effect on GDP per capita. A simple multi-variant regression is applied using the value added contribution of three main sectors: industry, agriculture and services, to test whether changes in the percentages contribution of these factors did have an impact on GDP per capita in these countries over the years. Results concluded that the diversification efforts do affect the level of GDP per capita in both countries with higher statistical significance in Saudi Arabia. Comparing pre and postdiversification eras revealed stronger effect of the sectors' contribution after diversification plans' implementation. UAE appeared to have benefited more than Saudi from the diversification efforts in terms of its GDP per capita level. Contribution/ Originality: This paper shall contribute to the GCC economic literature by providing first empirical analysis of the effect of diversification on GDP/capita for the two biggest countries in the GCC region. The paper provides a benchmark that can be used for the other four countries namely: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

This perspective is a qualitative meta-analysis study using a critical interpretive synthesis that narrates three future and equally plausible scenarios of social and economic development in the State of Kuwait over the next 15 years. The first scenario follows what we call the ‘Sustainable Growth’ model as defined by the United Nations Development Goals and the Kuwait Vision 2035 presented by the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. As a polar opposite, the next scenario is what we call the ‘Mismanaged Resourced-Based Autocracy’ model, a negative reflection of the worst-case scenario. The third scenario is in between these two, and we call it the ‘Equality of Outcome Between Societal Groups’ model. So as not to lay blame for past actions or point fingers, which could prove counterproductive to a consensus-building process for needed actions, we chose to use the pasts of other countries for future projections for the State of Kuwait. Our search through recent socio-economic pasts revealed that Singapore was the best fit for the first scenario, Venezuela for the second, and Lebanon for the third. All these countries became fully independent at approximately the same time as the State of Kuwait and share many other similarities. The three future projections were used as input variables to the outcome, which was a bottom-up and top-down consensus-making process regarding utilitarian action for Kuwait to be used by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Think-Tanks, Development Agencies, the government and the parliament.

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