Suchergebnisse

Abstract
This paper calculates an index measuring economic sustainability for the mainstream economy in the MENA region during the period 1999–2016. Our approximation says that a large value of the index indicates more stress on the economy or low sustainability and vice versa. We also explore some macroeconomic variables as potential determinants of economic sustainability. We employ the panel data analysis, in particular the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS). Our results show that economic development, trade openness, and political stability encourage economic sustainability. In contrast, government expenditures and control of corruption hinder the sustainability of the economy. Our paper suggests that policymakers should concentrate on economic development, enhance the trade openness, and create political stability environment to strengthen economic sustainability.
JEL classifications: I31, O11, Q01
Keywords: Economic sustainability; Economic development; Panel analysis; FGLS; MENA region

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically compare and contrast the effect of the nature of the political regime vs the political instability (PI) on real output in a group of countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) during the period 1980-2011. This part of the world has been going through a series of unstable political regimes and continuous PI events for over seven decades.


Design/methodology/approach
The author employs a time-series cross-sectional Prais-Winsten regression model with panel-corrected standard errors.


Findings
The author concludes that the relationship between the nature of the political regime and real output is mixed (negative and positive); this impact seems to get changed to a positive value whenever the regimes' instability events are mitigated. However, the influence of PI on real output has a negative benchmark level. The author also notices that the effect of the political regime on real output is stronger over all the sample countries of the study. The results depart somehow from the previous studies' findings. Therefore, the implication of the author's conclusion is to investigate how and why the effects of these uncertainties turned positive.


Originality/value
The paper contributes to the literature from three perspectives. First, the author compares the effects on real output from different types of political system uncertainties. Second, the author extracts evidence on this topic from the most unstable region of the world, the MENA region. Third, the author uses a new econometric technique compared to the previous studies.

AbstractThis paper explores the link between political instability and economic growth in Jordan, which is a lower middle-income country located at the heart of the Middle East. Historically, this region has been living under protracted wars, clashes, violence and terrorist attacks. We can expect these events to influence economic growth via their effect on government spending. We employ two econometric techniques: ARDL model (OLS) and Kalman filter (ML) and use data over the period 1967–2009. We find political instability has a statistically significant negative effect on economic growth as well as on real government expenditures.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the inertia of monetary policy in the Jordanian economy, in which the monetary policy is neutral owing to the adoption of a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar. The question of the current paper is: Does monetary policy inertia exist in such an economy despite the fact that the exchange rate is pegged to a foreign currency?Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypothesis of the current paper in Jordan, the Taylor rule, adjusted to be consistent with the context of monetary policy in Jordan, is estimated. Moreover, the model is estimated by two techniques: OLS and the Kalman filter, using quarterly data over the period (1994:1‐2007:1).FindingsThe empirical evidence from the Jordanian economy shows that monetary policy inertia is highly significant in Jordan. The coefficient of the lagged interest rate is estimated to lie between 0.60 and 0.69. Moreover, the evidence illustrates that both inflation rate and output gap have an insignificant effect on setting the policy rate. Further, the policy interest rate seems to be set gradually in reaction to monetary policy inertia, unobserved variable and foreign interest rate.Originality/valueThe paper investigates monetary policy inertia in a developing country whose economy is small, widely open and has a fixed exchange rate with the US dollar.