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on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | Ragui Assaad (University of Minnesota); Samir Ghazouani; Caroline Krafft |
| Abstract: | This paper examines labor supply in Tunisia in relation to key demographic characteristics such as age, sex, educational attainment, and residence. It also reviews unemployment in Tunisia over time and examines its demographic and educational patterns. The analysis is primarily based on data from the first wave of the Tunisia Labor Market Panel Survey carried out in 2014 (TLMPS 2014), but also uses data from the Tunisian National Survey of Population and Employment (ENPE) and other sources to examine the evolution of labor supply and unemployment over time. We identify important developments in the labor market relating to the youth bulge and the explosive growth of educational attainment in Tunisia in recent years. |
| Date: | 2017–01–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1150&r=ara |
| By: | Shah, Mumtaz Hussain |
| Abstract: | This research paper studies the likely effect of financial development on inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Middle East and North African (MENA) nations. Making use of yearly data for ten MENA developing countries from 1988 to 2015, the study finds significant positive influence of financial development on overseas investors’ investment decision. The empirically established FDI determining factors such as market size, development level, trade liberalisation, macroeconomic stability, trade agreements, bilateral investment treaties and infrastructure & skilled labour availability, were also taken into consideration. Moreover, to sift purely the effect of financial development devoid of any time variant phenomenon equally affecting all the MENA nations I have also controlled for a time trend. Hence, it is expected that the results of the research shall be free of any omitted variable bias. Using various proxies for financial development through random effects panel estimation method the findings of the study suggests that financial development is a robust predictor of FDI inflows in the MENA region. |
| Keywords: | Financial Development, FDI, MENA Countries and Panel Data. |
| JEL: | C33 F21 F23 O11 O16 |
| Date: | 2016–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:82013&r=ara |
| By: | Mohammad Reza Farzanegan; Mai Hassan |
| Abstract: | This study examines the economic globalization and the shadow economy nexus in Egypt. Using time series data from 1976 to 2013, the impulse response analysis shows that the response of the shadow economy in Egypt to positive shocks in economic globalization is negative and statistically significant for the first three years following the shock. This finding is obtained by controlling for several intermediary channels in globalization-shadow economy nexus such as education, government spending, industrial production, and labor force participation. Our results show the importance of promoting economic globalization by reducing the costs of doing business and trade in dealing with sizable shadow economy in Egypt. |
| Keywords: | shadow economy, globalization, VAR model, impulse responses, Egypt |
| JEL: | C53 F15 F40 O53 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6424&r=ara |
| By: | Richard A. Hunt (Division of Economics and Business, Colorado School of Mines); Lauren L. Ortiz-Hunt (Dyson School of Applied Economics, Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper is among the first to examine the interplay between deinstitutionalization and the rollout of novel business models by women entrepreneurs in developing countries. Much of the existing literature has examined the ways in which policy directives by formal institutions are the key drivers of entrepreneurial activity among women. Implicitly, this orientation suggests that the fate of women entrepreneurs is tied to, and cascades from, macro-level deinstitutionalization efforts, arising through changes in policies, laws and regulations championed at the highest levels. While this top-down view may intuitively be attractive, there are empirical reasons to doubt that the ``institutional cascading'' model accurately captures the underlying mechanisms of entrepreneurial activity among women. Taking a radically different tack, we develop and test an alternative, market-based perspective in which novel business models developed by women drive deinstitutionalization in bottom-up fashion. The context for our study involves detailed case histories of 95 women who started new businesses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 1960 - 2012. Using a question-driven research design, our findings indicate that deinstitutionalization is strongly associated with the timing and substance of entrepreneurial action taken by MENA women. |
| Keywords: | Women Entrepreneurs, Business Models, Deinstitutionalization, Institutional Theory, Innovation, Middle East and North Africa |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mns:wpaper:wp201706&r=ara |
| By: | Mustafa Özer; Jan Fidrmuc |
| Abstract: | We utilize a natural experiment, an education reform increasing compulsory schooling from five to eight years in Turkey, to obtain endogeneity-robust estimates of the effect of male education on the incidence of abusive and violent behaviour against women. We find that husband`s education lowers the probability of suffering physical, emotional and economic violence. The only aspect of violence not affected by spouse`s education is sexual violence. Schooling also lowers the likelihood that the marriage was arranged against the woman`s will, and makes men less inclined to engage in socially unacceptable behaviours such as drinking, gambling, and drug abuse. We also find that women whose mothers or whose husbands’ mothers experienced domestic violence are more likely to suffer violence themselves. |
| Keywords: | education, domestic violence, autonomy of women, difference-in-difference-in-differences, instrumental variable |
| JEL: | H52 J12 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_6526&r=ara |
| By: | Poyraz, Mehmet Sami; Masih, Mansur |
| Abstract: | There is a growing concern on tremendous increase in external debt stock of Turkey. Especially, with global financial crises, the sustainability of external debt and allocation of external debt to productive investments becomes more and more important. Many researches have been done to examine external debt stock and economic growth relation. However, External debt stock has not been broken down into external private debt and external government debt, which might give different results since the power and causality direction of external private debt (EPD) and external government debt (EGD) could be different. The objective of this paper is to make an humble attempt to test “the external debt led economic growth” hypothesis by breaking down compositions of external debt into External Private Debt and External Government Debt, particularly for Turkey over the period 1998Q1-2016Q1. For our analysis, standard time series techniques are adopted. Our findings of empirical analysis tend to suggest that, there is a significant causal relationship between external private debt and Gross Domestic Product and that external private debt leads GDP. These findings are useful and have policy implications for the developing countries like Turkey in that at least in the short run until the debt threshold is reached, an external private debt might be helpful for enhancing GDP. |
| Keywords: | external private debt, growth, Granger-causality |
| JEL: | C22 C58 F34 |
| Date: | 2017–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:82132&r=ara |