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on MENA - Middle East and North Africa |
| By: | Sara Hassan Hosney |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to identify the major factors influencing female labor force participation (FLFP) in Egypt and Germany. On a narrow scope and given the unclear relationship between educational attainment and Egyptian FLFP, this paper seeksto examine the effect of educational attainment on the Egyptian FLFP while considering other personal and household factors. On a broader scope, the literature on FLFP illustrates that certain personal and household characteristics determineFLFP. However, the question remains, to what extent these determinants differ between Egypt and Germany. This paper attempts to shed light on understanding if and how specific demographic factors affect the Egyptian FLFP in comparison with the German FLFP. Limited dependent variable technique; Probit model is utilized to determine which factors influence FLFP in both countries. The cross sectional analysis is conducted through the use of the 2012 Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) in collaboration with Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) and the 2012 German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Findings indicate that indeed higher educational attainmentincreases the Egyptian female’s predicted probability of participating in the labor market. Additionally, the comparative study showed that number of factors affect FLFP in both countries, some of which has a positive influence as years of schooling and age while others with a negative impact as being a married women, living in urban areas and number of children. On the other hand some other variables impact each country differently as wealth. Additionally, it was evident that years of schooling has a higher marginal impact on Egyptian FLFP yet, age, being married and number of children have a higher marginal effect on German FLFP. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp826&r=ara |
| By: | Mariusz Jarmuzek; Najla Nakhle |
| Abstract: | Reform of Lebanon’s pension system is indispensable. The country already faces fiscal sustainability risks, which will be compounded in the future by significantly higher pensionrelated spending and liabilities, mainly reflecting adverse demographics. In addition to sustainability issues, the pension system also suffers from equity shortcomings—Lebanon is the only MENA country that does not offer social security for retirees in the private sector. While several reform proposals have been formulated since the early 2000s, none has been implemented to date. Costs mount with every year of delay, so action is required soon to address these challenges. |
| Keywords: | Pensions;Ageing;Lebanon;Middle East;Fiscal policy;demographics, equity, pension reform, sustainability, pension, pension expenditure, pension system, retirement, employees, Social Security and Public Pensions, Demographic Trends and Forecasts, |
| Date: | 2016–03–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/46&r=ara |
| By: | Shima'a Hanafy (University of Marburg) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of sectoral foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth in Egypt, using a novel panel dataset of 26 Egyptian governorates for the period 1992–2007. The growth literature is robust with the benefits of using a within-country dataset for such a research question (Ford et al., 2008). Despite the large number of theoretical models on the channels through which FDI can enhance economic growth, empirical findings are still inconclusive. We argue that one possible reason for the ambiguous effect is the use of aggregate FDI data across different sectors. Our results show no significant effect of aggregate FDI stock on economic growth in Egyptian governorates, which can be partly explained by the contradictory growth effects of FDI at the sectoral level. We find a positive effect of manufacturing FDI, a negative effect of agricultural FDI and no significant effect of services FDI on economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment; sectoral FDI; economic growth; Egypt |
| JEL: | B59 C61 D21 D69 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201537&r=ara |
| By: | Mohamad Taghvaee, Vahid; Hajiani, Parviz |
| Abstract: | Price and income elasticities of gasoline demand show whether the price policy, pursued by the Iranian government, can decrease the high gasoline consumption sufficiently or not. Since the two oil price shocks in 1970 and 1973, interest in the study of oil products demand has increased considerably, especially on gasoline. High gasoline consumption is a serious crisis in Iran, posing economically, politically, and environmentally threats. In this study, the elasticities are estimated over three intervals, short run, intermediate run, and long run in Iran during 1976-2010, by putting the estimates of Error Correction Model (ECM), static model, and dynamic model in an increasing order, respectively. The short run, intermediate run, and long run price elasticities are −0.1538, −0.1618, and −0.3612 and the corresponding income elasticities are 0.2273 - 0.3581, 0.4636, and 0.7284, respectively. Not only do these elasticities imply that the gasoline demand is price and income inelastic but also the adjustment velocity, estimated by ECM, is a low point at −0.1942. Based on the estimations, the gasoline demand responds to the changes of price and income slightly and slowly. Therefore, policy makers should develop more strategies to reduce gasoline consumption, for example, substitute goods, public transportation systems, and environmental standards settings |
| Keywords: | Gasoline Demand, Price Elasticity, Income Elasticity, Static Model, ECM, Dynamic Model |
| JEL: | O13 Q3 Q31 Q41 |
| Date: | 2014–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70054&r=ara |
| By: | Roe, Terry L.; Smith, Rodney B.W. |
| Abstract: | Final Report, United Nations Environment Program, Project number 00042903 |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Productivity Analysis, |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umaemp:232878&r=ara |
| By: | Ismael, Mohanad; Sadeq, Tareq |
| Abstract: | The famous trade-off between inflation rate and unemployment rate is known as the Phillips relation. It is considered as important base for decision makers to stabilize the economy through inflation rate and unemployment rate. Although the Phillips curve is critisized by many researchers, there is a lack of studies that consider emerging-countries economies. The objective of this paper is to find evidence for the relationship between unemployment and inflation in Palestine. According to literature, the relationship is negative in a traditional Phillips curve. We find an inverse relationship between inflation rate and unemployment rate where inflation causes fluctuations in unemployment. In addition, it is shown that inflation rate affects unemployment rate positively only in the short run. This result is unique for Palestinian economy. |
| Keywords: | Cointegration; stationary; Phillips curve; Error Correction Model. |
| JEL: | C13 E31 E47 |
| Date: | 2016–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:70245&r=ara |
| By: | Olivier Petit (UA - Université d'Artois, CLERSE - Centre lillois d'études et de recherches sociologiques et économiques - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université Lille 1 - Sciences et technologies); Valère Martin (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs et Usages - CIRAD - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et Forêts - CEMAGREF-UR IRMO); Marcel Kuper (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs et Usages - CIRAD - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et Forêts - CEMAGREF-UR IRMO); Fatah Ameur (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs et Usages - CIRAD - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et Forêts - CEMAGREF-UR IRMO); Claire Papin-Stammose (UMR G-EAU - Gestion de l'Eau, Acteurs et Usages - CIRAD - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement - Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et Forêts - CEMAGREF-UR IRMO) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyze the emerging entrepreneurial practices and the underlying logic of family farms in two agrarian reform cooperatives in Morocco. These practices can be explained by the constant negotiation of multiple and sometimes even antagonistic logics (peasant, entrepreneurial, proletarian, capitalistic) within these farms in a context of rapid agrarian change and a juxtaposition of different farm types on the same territory. Five factors illustrate this emergence: (1) the access to credit, (2) the functioning of the farm (rotation of the crops, use of inputs, workforce), 3) the access to groundwater resources, (4) the marketing practices adopted by farmers and (5) the informational factors. The porosity of the peasant and entrepreneurial worlds is the main lesson we can draw from our study. There is a subtle process of hybridization between the peasant and entrepreneurial modes of farming, with a wide range of profiles, ranging from a pure 'peasant', to a pure 'entrepreneur' and in between the peasant-entrepreneur and the entrepreneur-peasant. If we only focus on the political discourse, the trend in the development of new modes of farming seems inescapable. Our study stresses the resistance of practices and logics of peasant modes of farming which can mix with a 'modern' vision of agriculture. However, the siren songs of entrepreneurship can lead to bankruptcy, an exit from agriculture, which could have a strong impact on the social cohesion of the Moroccan society, particularly in rural areas. |
| Keywords: | Morocco,groundwater economy,innovation,modes of farming,entrepreneurial practices and logics,irrigation,Saiss |
| Date: | 2015–10–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01249779&r=ara |
| By: | Andrew Tiffin |
| Abstract: | Macroeconomic analysis in Lebanon presents a distinct challenge. For example, long delays in the publication of GDP data mean that our analysis often relies on proxy variables, and resembles an extended version of the “nowcasting†challenge familiar to many central banks. Addressing this problem—and mindful of the pitfalls of extracting information from a large number of correlated proxies—we explore some recent techniques from the machine learning literature. We focus on two popular techniques (Elastic Net regression and Random Forests) and provide an estimation procedure that is intuitively familiar and well suited to the challenging features of Lebanon’s data. |
| Date: | 2016–03–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/56&r=ara |