Abstract

This study aims to identify the most important determinants of economic growth in a sample of six countries from the Middle East and North Africa region. Two of which are from high-income countries, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and two of the highest middle-income countries, Jordan and Lebanon, and two from lower Middle income, namely Egypt and Morocco. They were chosen in addition to the classification of income groups, based on data available to sample countries during the period 2001-2017. Augmented-Dickey-Fuller, a test of stationary of endogenous and exogenous variables, and Granger Causality Analysis were used to infer the causal relationship between these variables and economic growth. By applying Panel Data Analysis, according to Hausman Test, and by comparison between the fixed and random effect models, the results showed a preference for the random effect model. The results showed that the employment rate, foreign direct investment, gross national income, government expenditure, and inflation were among the most important in determining economic growth in the region during that period. All of them had a significant and positive impact on economic growth, except for the rate of growth in gross national income, which negatively affected the rate of economic growth. The pairwise Granger Causality showed that unidirectional causality is running from foreign direct investment Gross Domestic Product growth rates, from both Gross Capital Formation growth rates and Imports growth rates to Employment Ratio. Unidirectional causality also runs from both of Exports growth rates, Gross Capital Formation growth rates, Imports growth rates to Foreign Direct Investment as a percent of Gross Domestic Product. There is also unidirectional causality from foreign direct investment and imports to unemployment.