PurposeThis paper examines the impact of cryptocurrency market on the stock market performance in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. A comparative analysis is extended to distinguish this impact between Gulf countries and other economies in the region.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis uses the information of cryptocurrencies and the stock market indices of the Gulf countries for the period 2014–2018 on a daily basis. Two strategies have been implemented to fulfill the goal of the study: first, the tests strategy, which is applied using the cointegration analysis and panel-specific forms of Granger causality; second, the regression strategy, which is applied mainly using the instrument variable with generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) method.FindingsThe results show that there is a significant relationship between the cryptocurrency market and the stock market performance in the MENA region. On the one hand, for the Gulf countries that claim full obedience to the Islamic Sharia rules, each 1% increase in the cryptocurrency returns reduces the stock market performance by 0.15%. On the other hand, for the non-Gulf (other MENA) countries that have flexibility in applying the Islamic Sharia rules or do not follow it, the stock market performance increases by 0.13%, for each 1% increase in the cryptocurrency returns.Originality/valueThe paper proposes two main contributions: First, the paper introduces the cryptocurrency returns as one of the determinants of the stock market performance in the MENA region. This impact is distinguished based on the degree of applying the Islamic Sharia rules and the vision of the government to the stock market. Second, the paper provides an empirical guideline for governments in the MENA region for efficient measures in their stock market, given the important expansion of the cryptocurrency market and the government type.

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People often migrate in order to improve their family's standard of living. International migration is a widespread phenomenon among Egyptians and remittances can play an important role in alleviating household budget constraints. How do Egyptians invest their income received from remittances? Do remittances act as a significant tool to relax budget constraints for the household sector? Can we capture a relevant impact of the remittances on the education level in Egypt? The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of remittances on the level of educational attainment of children between ages 6-21 in Egypt. We distinguish this impact among two categories of individuals according to their age: the school aged individuals and the university aged persons. Two important contributions can be highlighted from our study: First, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that provides information on how do people invest their income received from remittances in Egypt, especially after the 25 th of January revolution. Second, it measures the impact of remittances on educational attainment rather than school enrollment rates, as adopted in the previous studies. Using the latest available dataset on Egypt that includes detailed information on households' socioeconomic background and migration, the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS, 2012), we imply an Ordered Probit Model using an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach to estimate the impact of remittance receipt on educational attainment. Findings show that remittances relax budget constraints positively impacting the educational attainment of university-aged youth. However, empirical results do not find any impact of remittances the school-aged individuals.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of knowledge management (KM) on the total factor productivity (TFP) at the organizational level in Egypt. Design/methodology/approach Using the novel available EC 2013 data set, which includes approximately 60,000 private organizations in Egypt, the paper explores the relationship between KM and TFP. For the purpose of dealing with endogeneity, the two-stage least squares econometric model has been implemented. Findings The study reveals that KM impacts positively the TFP of the Egyptian organizations. Conspicuously, each 10 percent increase in KM is associated with 9.3 percent increase in TFP. Originality/value The role of KM in the organizations has been under-researched globally, especially in Africa. This study contributes to the current literature by assessing the impact of KM on TFP, which represents the most comprehensive measure of the firm productivity; by implementing a novel instrumental variable in order to deal with endogeneity between KM and TFP; and by generating a more nuanced measure for the knowledge intensity that is not based on any financial indicator as in the most of the previous studies. Original findings can be highlighted from the paper as it demonstrates that the impact of KM is more important than proposed by the current literature. Conspicuously, the KM does not merely impact the customer satisfaction, the quality improvement and the profit margin, but it also impacts the TFP of the organizations.

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Purpose/Relevance: The main goal of this study is to find whether the cryptocurrency market does significantly impact the stock market prices and returns. Conspicuously, understanding this impact is quite interesting to clarify whether cryptocurrency market and stock market are acting as substitute or complement markets for investors.   Design/Methodology: We compile stock market daily data obtained from the historical indices of the Gulf countries with cryptocurrency market dataset obtained from bitcoincharts.com on a daily basis over the period 2014-2019. Properties of Panel Cointegration tests (Kao, Pedroni, Westerlund), Panel Causality tests as well as Generalized Method of Moments with Instrumental Variable (IV-GMM) have been implemented to fulfill the objective of the paper.   Findings: The results of this paper show  that the Stock market and cryptocurrency market are acting as substitutes in Gulf countries. Each 10 percent increase in the  cryptocurrency returns, the stock market returns in Gulf countries shrink 0.17 percent. Cryptocurrency market does significantly hamper the stock market indices in the Gulf countries.   Originality/Value: Having agreed upon in the literature that stock market is affected by fundamental factors, market sentiment, technical factors as well as anomalies, this study offers robust evidence that cryptocurrency should be introduced, nowadays, as one of the main determinants of stock market prices and returns.

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