In this paper, we argue that the Arab spring can be understood as a violent criticism of and attack against the post-Independence social contract that prevailed in most Middle East and North African countries. We show that this social contract, characterized by the combination of high levels of...

This paper quantitatively compares Middle East and North African (MENA) countries’ growth patterns with those of a sample of middle-income countries. Three complementary sets of growth determinants are tested: accumulation, institutions and structural change. After having estimated the model...

Macroeconomic determinants of FDI are seldom analyzed from the perspective of source countries, priority being given to host country characteristics. In a gravity set-up, we show that output volatility of source country has a significant adverse impact on FDI flowing to developing economies that...

The existing literature points to a series of determinants of FDI attraction such as the size of markets, the costs of labor, infrastructure, the educational level of the labor force, or policy reforms and political stability … However, potential trade-offs or complementarities between similar...

In this paper, we build a structural model of growth and we estimate it on panel data. We go further than the previous studies of Bende et al. (2000, 2003) or Li & Liu (2005), because we not only control for the endogenity of FDI towards growth, but we also control for the endogenity of FDI...

Human capital measures (schooling) are poorly significant in explaining growth for developing countries. An explanation is that increases in human capital have no significant effect on growth if this human capital is misallocated and underemployed. In a simple two-sector model of a small open...

In this paper, we ask if the convergence in policies leads to a convergence in growth dynamics for MENA countries. We first show that FDI promotion policies have been very similar in the South East Mediterranean countries during the last decade. Then, we try to find clubs of convergence in this...

In this paper, we argue that the inadequacy of their underlying formal model can explain the failure of the existing empirical studies to exhibit a robust and convergent estimation of the effect of FDI on growth. We build a structural model of growth with endogenous attraction to FDI, and we...

We discuss and test the relevance of the adaptation of the controversial sociological concept of “Middle Class” to African rural areas. We propose the concept of Moderate Prosperity and apply it to the Malagasy rural area, particularly in the Itasy region. This paper aims to emphasize the...

Le renforcement actuel des inégalités économiques, souvent considéré comme intrinsèquement néfaste, est de plus en plus reconnu comme générateur d’effets secondaires, par exemple sur la santé ou la croissance. Face à la persistance de la crise environnementale contemporaine, le...