We examine the role of democracy shocks in the cross-country economic growth processes over a period of five decades since 1960. The recent uprisings that arose independently and spread across the Arab world form the main context of our investigation. We study if (i) a shock to democracy in one...

This paper investigates the effect of oil price shocks on government expenditures on the health and education sectors in Saudi Arabia. Using a quarterly dataset 1990Q1-2017Q2 and employing a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model, our research shows evidence of a non-linear...

Saudi Arabia, a major oil exporting country, adopted an ambitious plan known as 2030 Vision to diversify its economy through dramatic increases in domestic investment. However, with oil remaining at modest to low prices by recent historical standards, it is important to study the implications of...

This paper empirically explores how fiscal policy - represented by changes in government spending- exerts asymmetric effects on economic growth in the context of a developing country, Egypt in particular. By allowing for the theoretical plausibility of asymmetric effects of fiscal policy on...

This paper quantifies the macroeconomic spillover effects of conflict within sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries using a new Conflict Spillover Index (CSI), which accounts for conflict intensity and distance from conflict-affected countries. Our findings reveal an escalation in conflict...

This study investigates the factors leading to exclusion and their detrimental impacts in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It employs two-levels of analysis: a macro-level estimation of the influence of exclusion and marginalization on violent conflict, and a micro-level investigation identifying the...