This paper investigates how macroeconomic policy shocks in Turkey affect the total unemployment and provides evidence on the differential responses of the unemployment by sectors of economic activity. Our paper extends the previous work in two respects. First, we consider not only the response...

Credit–risk evaluation is a very important and challenging problem for financial institutions. Many classification methods have been suggested in the literature to tackle this problem. Neural networks have especially received a lot of attention because of their universal approximation...

In 2003, over 80 percent of unemployed 15-29 year-olds in Syria sought jobs in the public sector and 60 percent preferred jobs exclusively in the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to examine the preferences of young people in Syria for public sector jobs. The paper also discusses an...

This paper examines feedback causality between capital inflow components and currency black market premiums (BMP) in a panel of eight Middle Eastern and North African countries (MENA) over the period 1984-2004. MFR and average Wald statistics approaches were employed to test for causality. Both...

The question as to whether religion can block economic development and institutional change, or is a purely endogenous factor, assumes particular importance today because of the rise of Islamist movements and the disappointing economic performances in the lands of Islam. This paper starts from a...

Empirical analysis of vertical integration has mostly been restricted to developed countries. But since the institutional context in developing countries is very different, so may be the factors that influence vertical integration. Estimates made using a new data set of Egyptian garment firms...

While cash transfers through proxy means tests have increased over the last decade in Latin America to fight poverty, consumption subsidies remain the common form of redistributive income in most MENA countries. There may be many reasons for this such as their administrative costs, effects on...

This paper presents a theoretical growth model that attempts to identify one of the mechanisms linking tourism and economic growth in the MENA region. In particular, it establishes the link between tourism exports, imports of capital goods and economic growth. This new channel of economic growth...

After the February 2001 crisis, Turkey started to implement a new economic program. One of its aims was to reduce public debt that had jumped to a record high level. The resulting fiscal consolidation was rather exceptional. By the end of 2006, public debt-to-GDP ratio had declined by 43...

A widely held view in the economic literature is that productivity growth is an important pathway through which trade liberalization affects the poor. This paper explores the links between trade openness, agricultural productivity, growth and poverty reduction in a panel of Mediterranean...