nep-ara New Economics Papers
on Arab World
Issue of 2013‒02‒08
seven papers chosen by
Quentin Wodon
World Bank

  1. Dissecting the impact of innovation on exporting in Turkey By Alessia LO TURCO; Daniela MAGGIONI
  2. The relationship between international tourism and economic growth: the case of Morocco and Tunisia By Bouzahzah, Mohamed; El Menyari, Younesse
  3. Financial Stability of Islamic and Conventional Banks in Saudi Arabia: a Time Series Analysis By Hassan Ghassan; Stefano Fachin; Abdelkarim Guendouz
  4. One Hundred Years of Oil Income and the Iranian Economy: A curse or a Blessing? By Mohaddes, K.; Pesaran, M.H.
  5. À la recherche d’une typologie des migrants de retour : le cas des pays du Maghreb By Fatma MABROUK
  6. TÜRKÝYE TARIM SEKTÖRÜ’NDE YAPISAL DÖNÜÞÜM VE TEKNOLOJÝ KULLANIMININ ROLÜ By Gökhan Özertan
  7. Experimental Study of Bilateral Cooperation Under a Political Conflict: The Case of Israelis and Palestinians By Sebastian J. Goerg; Jan Meise; Gari Walkowitz; Eyal Winter

  1. By: Alessia LO TURCO (Universit… Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali); Daniela MAGGIONI (Universit… Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali)
    Abstract: Making use of an original firm level dataset, we explore the causal impact of innovation on the manufacturing firm export activity in Turkey. We model process and product innovation as separately - through cost savings and product quality improvements, respectively - affecting the firm profitability and, consequently, the firm export propensity. This modeling choice highlights heterogeneous effects across high and low income destination markets. In a Multiple Propensity Score Matching framework, we, then, test the impact of each innovation activity and of their joint adoption. We find that only the latter fosters the first time entry into exporting, when the destination market is high income. Nevertheless, innovation positively affects the firmexport propensity. New product introduction is more rewarding than process innovation, especially for exporting to lowincome economies. Process innovation, though, strengthens the positive role of product innovation for exporting to more advanced markets.
    Keywords: Turkey, export, process innovation, product innovation
    JEL: D22 F10 F14 O31
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:388&r=ara
  2. By: Bouzahzah, Mohamed; El Menyari, Younesse
    Abstract: This study proposes to examine the impact of tourism activity on the economic growth of Morocco and Tunisia. We contribute here to the empirical literature on the tourism-led growth (TLG) hypothesis, by adopting the error correction model framework, the cointegration and Granger Causality tests between real tourism receipts, real effective exchange rate and economic growth in Morocco and Tunisia, for the annual period 1980-2010; two main results emerge from this analysis. First, contrary to the predictions of the TLG hypothesis, the Granger test results show that this hypothesis is only valid for short-term in the two countries of Maghreb. Second, the results show that in the long term, there is a strong unidirectional causality from economic growth to international tourism receipts.
    Keywords: TLG hypothesis; tourism receipts; economic growth; cointegration; Granger causality; Morocco and Tunisia
    JEL: C32 O57 L83 E01 F43
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:44102&r=ara
  3. By: Hassan Ghassan (King Faisal University); Stefano Fachin (Universita' di Roma "La Sapienza"); Abdelkarim Guendouz (King Faisal University)
    Abstract: Islamic banks are characterised by the compliance to Islamic laws and practices, the main ones being the prohibition of interest and loans trading. Remarkably, during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, when a large number of conventional banks have announced bankruptcy, no single Islamic bank failure has been reported. However, there is no clear consensus in the literature on question of whether Islamic banks are more or less stable than conventional banks. We study a sample of Saudi banks over a period centred on the 2008 financial crisis. The main conclusions are: (i) the variables typically used in financial stability studies may be non-stationary, a feature ignored in the literature, and, (ii), individual heterogeneity may matter more than the conventional or islamic nature of the banks.
    Keywords: Money demand; Endogenous money; Gulf monetary union; Panel cointegration; Poolability.
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sas:wpaper:20126&r=ara
  4. By: Mohaddes, K.; Pesaran, M.H.
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of oil revenues on the Iranian economy over the past hundred years, spanning the period 1908-2010. It is shown that although oil has been produced in Iran over a very long period, its importance in the Iranian economy was relatively small up until the early 1960s. It is argued that oil income has been both a blessing and a curse. Oil revenues when managed appropriately are a blessing, but their volatility (which in Iran is much higher than oil price volatility) can have adverse effects on real output, through excessively high and persistent levels of inflation. Lack of appropriate institutions and policy mechanisms which act as shock absorbers in the face of high levels of oil revenue volatility have also become a drag on real output. In order to promote growth, policies should be devised to control in?ation; to serve as shock absorbers negating the adverse effects of oil revenue volatility; to reduce rent seeking activities; and to prevent excessive dependence of government finances on oil income.
    Keywords: Oil price volatility, oil income, rent seeking, inflation, macroeconomic policy.
    JEL: E02 N15 Q32
    Date: 2013–01–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1302&r=ara
  5. By: Fatma MABROUK
    Abstract: Ce papier étudie la problématique de la migration de retour, selon une approche micro-économique. Nous présentons tout d’abord une brève revue de la littérature théorique et empirique de la migration de retour. Ensuite, nous déterminons une typologie des migrants de retour d’origine maghrébine à l’aide d’une analyse exploratoire multidimensionnelle. Cinq groupes ont été identifiés, les jeunes novateurs et non novateurs, les femmes qui subissaient la migration de leurs époux, les retraités novateurs et les retraités traditionnels.
    Keywords: Migration de retour, pays du Maghreb, Analyses en Composantes Multiples, Classification Ascendante Hiérarchique, développement du pays d’origine.
    JEL: C81 F22 F24
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2013-06&r=ara
  6. By: Gökhan Özertan
    Date: 2013–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bou:wpaper:2013/01&r=ara
  7. By: Sebastian J. Goerg; Jan Meise; Gari Walkowitz; Eyal Winter
    Abstract: We investigate strategic interactions of Israelis and Palestinians within a controlled laboratory experiment. In our first treatment we retrieve cooperation benchmarks prevailing within both subject pools. Then we measure cooperation levels and associated beliefs between Israelis and Palestinians. Treatment three assesses the influence of pre-play face-to-face encounter on cooperative behavior. Our findings are: The degree of expected and actual cooperation within the Palestinian subject pool is significantly higher as compared to the respective levels found in Israel. In line with previous findings, cooperation decreases if subjects are paired with subjects from the other subject pool. Previously detected subject pool differences are not offset. The drop in inter-subject pool cooperation can be outweighed by the introducing of face-to-face communication, which dramatically increases the cooperation rates. The differences in contributions between Palestinians and Israelis are associated with differences in subjects' beliefs. Face-to-face encounter increases and balances beliefs and therefore enhances cooperation.
    Keywords: Bargaining, Belief-structure, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, International Cooperation, Prisoner's Dilemma
    JEL: A13 C72 C91 F51
    Date: 2013–01–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgr:cgsser:04-01&r=ara

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