nep-ara New Economics Papers
on MENA - Middle East and North Africa
Issue of 2020‒11‒09
three papers chosen by
Paul Makdissi
Université d’Ottawa

  1. Female Labor Force Participation in Five Selected MENA Countries: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia) By Lassassi, Moundir; Tansel, Aysit
  2. BUYING LOYALTY OF VOTERS OR LOCAL ELITES? POLITICAL ALIGNMENT AND TRANSFERS TO PROVINCES IN TUTELARY REGIMES: THE CASE OF IRAN By Ilya A. Vaskin
  3. Building consensus: shifting strategies in the territorial targeting of Turkey's public transport investment By Luca, Davide; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés

  1. By: Lassassi, Moundir; Tansel, Aysit
    Abstract: This paper considers the female labor force participation (FLFP) behavior over the past decade in five MENA countries namely, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia. Low FLFP rates in these countries, as it is in other MENA countries, are well documented. We conduct synthetic panel analysis using age-period-cohort (APC) methodology and decompose FLFP rates into age, period and cohort effects. We present our results with Hanoch-Honig/Deaton-Paxson normalization and maximum entropy estimation approaches to the APC methodology in order to observe robustness of our results. We first study the aggregate FLFP and note the differentials in age, period and cohort effects across the countries we consider. The analysis is carried also out by rural/urban regional differentiation, marital status and educational attainment. Implications of our results for possible government policies to increase FLFP rates are discussed.
    Keywords: Female labor force participation,synthetic panel analysis,life-cycle profiles,period effects,cohort effects,MENA countries
    JEL: C23 C25 D1 J21
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:693&r=all
  2. By: Ilya A. Vaskin (National Research University Higher School of Economics)
    Abstract: The paper investigates the impact of an electoral support for president for short- and long-term transfers between national and provincial governments in tutelary regimes. The research uses the case of Iran; the database covers 330 observations for 30/31 provinces for 2005-2015. The results show that Iranian presidents target short-term transfers for disloyal provincial elites, while long-term transfers do not show political connection with voting patterns. The results also allow for assuming that the key factor for the logic of distribution is a political competition
    Keywords: voting alignment, intergovernmental transfers, tutelary regime, regional elites, Iran
    JEL: D72 H77 R50
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:73/ps/2020&r=all
  3. By: Luca, Davide; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
    Abstract: A growing amount of research explores how the allocation of regional development monies follows electoral reasons. Yet, the existing literature on distributive politics provides different and contrasting expectations on which geographical areas will be targeted. The paper focuses on proportional representation (PR) systems. While in such settings governments have incentives to target core districts and punish foes, it is suggested that when incumbents attempt to build a state–party image they may broaden the territorial allocation of benefits and even target opposition out-groups. The paper exploits data on Turkey's public transport investment for the period 2003–14 and in-depth interviews to provide results in support of the hypothesis.
    Keywords: public investment; transport infrastructure; distributive politics; politics of development; Turkey
    JEL: D72 H70 O18
    Date: 2019–11–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:100331&r=all

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