The eruption of the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt was ensued by deterioration in FDI inflows. Whether a new Middle East free of corruption accompanying previous dictatorships will offset the negative ramifications of the uprisings and enhance FDI in the long run remains debatable. Since the evidence on the causal relationship between corruption and FDI is inconclusive, this study attempts to take another step. The paper investigates the link between corruption and FDI flows to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and assesses whether or not corruption has more importance than other FDI determinants. By employing several panel settings with various econometric specifications on 21 MENA countries over the period 2003 to 2009, it is demonstrated that FDI varies positively with corruption. Additionally, FDI in MENA was found to vary positively with per capita income, openness, freedom and security of investments and negatively with the tax and homicide rates. Since corruption was not found to hinder FDI inflows, treating corruption should be based on sound legal procedures that infringe neither on the rights, freedom and security of FDI nor on the degree of openness and freedom of the economy, which are the real stimulants of FDI in MENA.
PurposeThe objective of this paper is to prove that any attempt to implement social justice in its present undefined form is unattainable, and to successfully achieve social justice, the term should be quantified by an appropriate index; accordingly, the first objective of this paper is to make an attempt to construct an appropriate social justice index. The second objective is to quantify this index for a number of developing countries so that a government with low value of social justice index can make policy for achieving an appropriate level of social justice.Design/methodology/approachThe paper constructs a new composite index for social justice for 40 mostly developing countries by selecting six subindicators, each of which represents one aspect or dimension of social justice. The values of the subindicators are then normalized and the final composite index is formed from the weighted average of the subindicators.FindingsThe study quantified the levels of social justice in developing countries through a new social justice index and compared the ranking of some developing countries using the new index. The index also helped in identifying areas of social justice that need improvement and hence can improve the developing countries' scores in the social justice index.Originality/valueThe paper is valuable to policy makers in developing countries especially the Arab Spring countries in their pursuit for achieving social justice. Quantifying social justice clarifies exactly where such countries stand and the dimensions of social justice that need urgent action to improve their performance and thus their index scores.
Egypt has a long history with external financing dating back to the 19th century. Nevertheless, Egypt's external debt has been mounting remarkably in the past few years. This paper examines the impact of Egypt's external debt on its price level, a topic ignored by researchers. Nonetheless, as inflation is a hydra‐headed problem, this paper develops several models which incorporate fiscal and monetary policies besides other inflation‐inducing internal and external factors using monthly data extending from 2000M1 to 2020 M1. By employing ARDL cointegration analyses on monthly time series variables and using Egypt's wholesale price index to account for inflation, the paper concludes that external debt raises prices both in the short and long runs. Moreover, money supply and interest rate were also found to increase prices in the long run long despite decreasing them in the short run. Finally, upsurges in the international prices of primary products stimulate domestic prices both in the short and long terms, while depreciation in the local currency aggravates inflation in the short and long terms as well. As external debt raises inflation and affects many other inflation‐inducing factors indirectly, the paper concludes that reducing Egypt's external debt may help in curbing Egypt's inflation.
Although some studies have attempted to assess the rural–urban income gap in the 1960s and 1970s, no study has focused on the evolution of the gap over the past 25 years, let alone the evolution in the real differences in per capita income between the rural sector and the urban one. The objective of this study is to fill the gap in the literature on this topic and to appraise the development in the gap – in nominal and real terms – both on the aggregate per capita rural and urban income levels and in different expenditure size classes from 1981 till 2005, a period which witnessed a revolution in the agricultural policies from intensive government intervention to complete liberalization. The results of the study prove that the gap diverged again from 1994 to 2005 after converging from 1981 to 1994. The study also proves that the gap is more apparent in the middle classes rather than the lower ones. Finally, with respect to food consumption the study concluded that a slight gap may exist in favour of rural – and not urban – Egypt.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to utilize a newly constructed index for social justice, with its two versions SJI-1 and SJI-2, to measure new values for the indexes in 35 countries in two periods, 2005-2010 and 2011-2015, in an attempt to assess quantitatively how less developed countries developed through time in terms of social justice. Design/methodology/approach The paper obtained data for 35 developing countries in the six subindicators used to quantify the six dimensions of the social justice index. The values of the subindicators were then normalized and aggregated to form SJI-1 and SJI-2, each of which assigns different weights for its subindicators, for the 35 countries in the two periods 2005-2010 and 2011-2015. Findings Results of the new values of the index in its two versions were close in showing how 31 countries (according to SJI-1) and 29 countries (according to SJI-2) managed to improve their levels of social justice, while the indexes of only three countries (according to SJI-1) and six countries (according to SJI-2) worsened. Nevertheless, the index depicted that some countries performed better than others by improving their ranks at the expense of others. Comparison of the study’s quantitative results with qualitative research seems to provide some support for SJI-2 in echoing social justice compared to SJI-1. Originality/value The study is a vital tool for policymakers for appraising the levels of social justice in their respective countries, both in absolute terms by highlighting the scores of their countries with respect to social justice, and in relative terms by clarifying where their countries stand through cross-country comparisons, in addition to identifying dimensions of social justice which are in need of intervention for further enhancement.
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