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The aim of the article is to conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of aggregate and disaggregate private capital flows on economic growth in eleven MENA countries between 1980 and 2018. Unlike prior empirical studies, the fixed effect panel quantile approach developed by Canay (2011) is implemented. Findings suggest that there is a significant difference in the effects of private capital flows on economic growth across lower and higher quantiles. More specifically, the effects of total private capital flows, foreign direct investment flows, portfolio flows and debt flows are positive and statistically significant only for low and medium quantiles, indicating that the enhancing impact of private capital flows in terms of economic growth is only confirmed in countries with relatively low and medium growth rates. Moreover, debt flows affect economic growth in countries recording high growth rates, stressing the importance of financial development in routing those flows into the most productive projects in the economy.

The rapid expansion of renewable energy sources and their integration into the energy mix has generated scholarly interest in comprehending the interplay between renewable and conventional energy markets. This research aims to examine the (a)symmetric volatility spillover between the oil market and various regional renewable energy stock markets, namely the US, Europe and Asia. To achieve this objective, we employ the time-varying parameter vector autoregressive-based connectedness (TVP-VAR) approach, which allows analysing the interconnection and transmission of shocks between the different markets. Based on an analysis of daily data relative to the different regional renewable energy stock markets and international oil prices, the findings suggest the presence of a dynamic volatility connectedness between the green and brown energy stock markets. The extent of connectedness is contingent upon the specific regional renewable energy market under consideration. Moreover, the decomposition of the volatility series into good and bad volatility emphasizes an asymmetric pattern, which becomes more pronounced during periods of major events. On average, the oil market and the Asian renewable energy stock market are net receivers of volatility shocks. In contrast, the US and European renewable energy stock markets are net transmitters of shocks. Our findings provide investors with valuable insights for portfolio design and risk management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest decades have been marked by rapid climate change and global warming due to the release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Environmental taxes have emerged as a cost-effective way to tackle environmental degradation. However, the effectiveness of environmental taxes in reducing pollution remains a topic of ongoing debate. The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the effects of various environmental tax categories (energy, pollution, resource and transport) on CO2 emissions in 34 OECD countries between 1995 and 2019. The dynamic panel threshold regression developed by Seo and Shin (2016) is implemented to assess whether the impact of environmental taxes on CO2 emissions depends on a given threshold level. The locally weighted scatterplot smoothing analysis provides evidence for a nonlinear association between environmental taxes and CO2 emissions. The analysis indicates the existence of one significant threshold and two regimes (lower and upper) for all environmental tax categories. The dynamic panel threshold regression reveals that the total environmental tax, energy tax and pollution tax reduce CO2 emissions in the upper regime, i.e., once a given threshold level is reached. The threshold levels are 3.002% of GDP for the total environmental tax, 1.991% for the energy tax and 0.377% for the pollution tax. Furthermore, implementing taxes on resource utilization may be effective but with limited environmental effects. Based on the research results, it is recommended that countries in the OECD implement specific environmental taxes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the impact of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups in Tunisian manufacturing industries. The empirical investigation is based on a rich and unique firm-level dataset covering the period 1997–2007. The estimation of a dynamic labor demand function using the system GMM estimator brings out many interesting findings. First, results indicate that foreign ownership has a positive effect on total employment. Second, when decomposing employment according to skill level, we reveal that the foreign ownership of firms affects positively unskilled labor demand and negatively skilled labor demand. Furthermore, the effects are higher in small and medium-sized enterprises and firms belonging to low technology industries. Findings also suggest no significant differences between short- and long-run effects of foreign ownership on the employment of different skill groups. Finally, the main results of the research hold even when estimating the labor demand functions simultaneously using the three-stage least squares estimator. The policy implications are correspondingly derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]