nep-ara New Economics Papers
on MENA - Middle East and North Africa
Issue of 2017‒10‒29
three papers chosen by
Paul Makdissi
Université d’Ottawa

  1. Electronic Health Records Prospects in Egypt: A Demand-Side Perspective By Badran; Mona Farid
  2. The impact of oil rents on military spending: Does corruption matter? By Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza
  3. The Effects of Compulsory Schooling Laws on Teenage Marriage and Births in Turkey By Murat G. Kırdar; Meltem Dayıoğlu; İsmet Koç

  1. By: Badran; Mona Farid
    Abstract: The present study sheds light on the expected factors that would impact the Electronic Health Records (EHR) service in Egypt from the demand-side perspective, i.e. the health care consumer. This empirical study is motivated by the widespread use of EHR as a method of promoting health services globally, where it is considered as an efficiency enhancing, cost effective technology. Moreover, the healthcare sector in Egypt is gaining momentum, especially that the comprehensive healthcare and social insurance law are expected to be discussed in the Egyptian Parliament in the near future. The underlying theoretical framework of this study implicates the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology in Consumer Context (UTAUT2). It also applies an integrated framework from multifaceted perceptions to explain the expected adoption decision or behavior of the Egyptian consumer of EHR. The study relies on primary data, a survey of 559 respondents. Responses were collected by a telephone-based nationwide survey of respondents who completed college education or above. Their opinions were collected towards the EHR and the best way to apply this system in Egypt. The sample covered urban governorates, Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt, and it was collected in December 2015. Logistic regression results reveal that statistically significant constructs include the following: whether or not EHR is useful, willingness to pay for it, the gender perspective, the person in charge for uploading results, expected difficulties in using EHR, and the interaction term between gender and internet usage. Finally, more insight and recommendations are provided to policy makers.
    Keywords: Healthcare sector,e-health,UTAUT2,Egypt,Logistic regression
    JEL: I10 I15 I18 L96
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse17:169447&r=ara
  2. By: Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza
    Abstract: This study shows that the level of corruption matters in how oil rents affect the military spending within countries. Using panel data covering the 1984–2014 period for the Middle East and North Africa countries, we find that the effect of oil rents on military budget depends on the extent of political corruption. Oil wealth boosts military spending when corruption (measured by the re-scaled ICRG index) exceeds a critical score of 5 (out of 6) in the MENA region.
    JEL: H10 H56 H57
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168157&r=ara
  3. By: Murat G. Kırdar (Department of Economics, Boğaziçi University, 34342 İstanbul, Turkey); Meltem Dayıoğlu (Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, 06800 Ankara, Turkey); İsmet Koç (Institute of Population Studies, Hacettepe University, 06100 Ankara, Turkey)
    Abstract: This paper estimates the impact of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey—which increased women’s schooling by more than a year—on marriage and birth outcomes of teenage women. We employ a regression discontinuity design, where we compare month-year of birth cohorts of women. The increased compulsory schooling years reduce the probability of teenage marriage by age 16 and first-births by age 17 substantially. However, these effects dissapear after ages 17 and 18 for marriage and first-births, respectively. Our results indicate strong incarceration effects of the policy on marriage and birth outcomes during the newly mandated compulsory schooling years as well as human capital effects on the time to marriage. However, the human capital effects on the probability of being ever-married vanish after a couple of years the students become free to leave school.
    Keywords: Teenage marriage; births; education; compulsory schooling; regression discontinuity
    Date: 2017–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:met:wpaper:1710&r=ara

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