The year 2016 appears to be one of the toughest for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as their governments face serious policy challenges. The biggest challenge for oil exporters is managing their finances and diversification strategies with oil below

Armington's insight that imports and domestically produced goods were imperfect substitutes has unleashed extensive estimates of the associated trade elasticity, primarily for developed countries. This notion of product differentiation, which extends symmetrically to exports and domestic goods,...