This paper examines the strategies of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries concerning growth-enhancing institutions and policies. Long-term economic growth depends crucially upon the quality and robustness of a country's institutions. The fundamental institutions are typically...

This paper first describes the educational system in Turkey and the two national examinations for advancing to upper levels of schooling, which spur demand for private tutoring called “dersane” in Turkish. Second, the evolution of Private Tutoring Centers (PTCs) is described and compared...

It is fair to say that the 2007 Credit Crisis was born a year ago, in August 2007. Since its onset, economists and finance experts have been conjecturing whether as a result, the world economy will be moving into a depression and at what final cost? By the end of 2007, the United States and...

Our study focuses on the labor market implications of vocational and technical education in the MENA region, analyzing the case of Egypt and Morocco. We try to assess the validity of those vocational systems by looking at the determinants of schooling choice and the effect of segregation between...

In the aftermath of the 2000-2001crisis the banking sector in Turkey was in turbulence requiring immediate action. The rescue operation sky-rocketed the public debt-to-gross domestic product ratio. The fiscal dominance caused by high public debt put a severe constraint on the conduct of monetary...

This study attempts to fill a void in the literature by examining education-occupation mismatches in Egypt. Using the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) 2006 and Egypt Labor Market Survey (ELMS) 1998, this paper investigates whether the empirical evidences of studies on over-education and...

Excessive withdrawal of groundwater for irrigation raises the issue of the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in many MENA countries. The objective of this paper is to determine the magnitude of groundwater overdraft and its external costs in Iran. Both quantitative and qualitative impacts...

This paper aims at conducting an analytical exercise on the rent seeking phenomenon in Morocco with respect to political and institutional reforms. Following a brief methodological description of reform as a source of rent, we have outlined a variety of channels through which rents are created...

This paper studies the possibility of a monetary union in the Maghreb using the traditional criteria of the optimal currency areas theory. Firstly, we examine the degree of shocks correlation in order to see whether the shocks affecting Maghreb countries are symmetrical or asymmetrical. The...

This paper examines economic performance of the OIC member countries and analyzes the prospect of Islamic common market by analyzing trade data within a gravity model framework. There is scope of trade creation for OIC member countries if all impediments to trade and business can be eliminated....