In an interview with The Gulf, Martin Feldstein, a veteran US economist and advisor to four presidents, discusses the impact of Middle East unrest, high oil prices and the disaster in Japan on the American economy.

2011 has not proved to be an easy year for investors. Turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and a spike in oil prices have generated anxiety about the global economic recovery. Combined with the triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, which has pummeled the world's third largest economy, forecasters are struggling to assess the fallout from the twin crises.

Speaking to The Gulf at an investor conference in Oman organised by the Dutch asset management group Robeco – focused on megatrends such as food shortages and inflation which have exacerbated Middle East unrest – Martin Feldstein, the veteran economist and an advisor to four US presidents, warned that the unfolding crisis in the Middle East and the potential for unrest to spread to other oil producing nations could threaten the US recovery. Full story