covering 1989–2004 for banks in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. The results provide clear support for a …

Since the onset of the Arab Spring, economic uncertainty in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen (Arab … and social tensions have constrained reform efforts. Assessing policy options as presented in the voluminous literature on …

This paper examines the economic and financial linkages between Morocco and Tunisia and their European partners. Using … growth in Morocco and Tunisia. For Tunisia, exports and, to a much lesser extent, tourism appear to be the major transmission … channels. In Morocco, exports, remittances and tourism play relatively equal roles. An analysis with sectoral data supports …

Lebanon is expected to have gas resources in its Mediterranean basin, and these could turn the country into a natural …

liberalization, privatization, and stabilization reforms. Theory predicts that decentralization may aggravate fiscal imbalances … over 19 years to address a central question of fact: Did privatization help to promote local governments’ fiscal … discipline? The answer is clearly ‘no’ for privatization considered in isolation. However, privatization and subnational …

We explore the underlying determinants of the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and tax and social security reform … and small economy, are examined: the effects of changes in government debt; higher government spending; tax reform; and … privatization of retirement savings. …

The increased budget deficit caused by the privatization of a public pension plan does not imply a relaxation of the … stance of fiscal policy. The reform's impact on the fiscal stance and national saving depends primarily on its effect on the … sum of explicit and implicit public debt and on the post-reform payroll tax and private system contribution rates. However …