This paper reviews the main features of the banking and financial sector in ten new EU members, and then examines the relationship between financial development and economic growth in these countries by estimating a dynamic panel model over the period 1994-2007. The evidence suggests that the...

This paper examines the economic ramifications of the recent political reconfigurations that the MENA region witnessed, commonly known as the Arab Spring, utilizing MENA countries data during period 2005-2016. Using the Arellano-Bond dynamic panel estimation, the paper estimates a growth model...

This paper examines the causality relationship between immigration, unemployment and economic growth of the host country. We employ the bootstrap panel Granger causality testing approach of Kónya (2006) that allows to test for causality on each individual country separably by accounting for...

We investigate whether a causal interpretation of the robust association between cognitive skills and economic growth is appropriate and whether cross-country evidence supports a case for the economic benefits of effective school policy. We develop a new common metric that allows tracking...

This paper provides an overview of the complex conceptual and practical challenges that emerging market economies face as they attempt to reform their frameworks for financial regulation. These economies are striving to balance the quest for financial stability with the imperatives of financial...

One of the central concerns in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has been the reduction of poverty and inequality so prevalent in the continent. Using large world samples, the literature has found that financial development increases economic growth, increases the income of the poor, and...

This paper investigates the effects of financial development and political instability on economic growth in a power-ARCH framework with data for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. Our findings suggest that (i) informal or unanticipated political instability (e.g., guerrilla warfare) has a direct...

Despite being a fixture of everyday life in the Arab world, wasta, which may be thought of as special influence by members of the same group or tribe, has received little attention from social scientists. Our casual empiricism suggests that wasta is an important determinant of how economic...

This study investigates the factors that underlay the low labour force participation rate among Palestinian-Arab women in Israel relative to Jewish women despite the high educational attainment among this group. We focus on four factors that could explain this pattern: (i) socioeconomic factors...

Disadvantaged communities are often geographically segregated from employment and higher education opportunities. Increasing access can entail substantial welfare gains, but this can also affect the tradeoff faced by young adults between investing in higher education and working for pay. We...