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Global warming has become one of the most serious world-challenging issues nowadays, and much effort is being done to combat its consequences. Therefore, studying the trade-off between carbon emissions and economic activity remains an attractive subject for researchers. In this study, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is adopted to verify the trade-off between carbon dioxide emissions per capita and labor productivity in the top 40 emitter countries. Accordingly, a panel data from the top 40 emitter countries is employed from 1992 to 2018, and the novel method of moments quantile regression (MMQREG) is used to analyze the nexus among the variables. In addition, four robustness tests were used to validate the initial results. The findings reveal evidence for the N-shape EKC in the top 40 emitter countries. This indicates that economic growth initially will improve environmental quality up to a certain labor productivity level. However, after reaching a certain turning point, per capita CO2 emission began to fall with rising labor productivity up to the second tipping point, and then, a subsequent phase of deterioration. Heterogeneous characteristics are, however, detected over the N-shape EKC. Like the conclusion reached from the MMQREG, the pooled ordinary least squares (POLS), the fixed-effects (FE), the random-effects (RE), and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) all confirmed the existence of the N-shape hypothesis.

This paper investigates the effect of bank-specific, government, and macroeconomic indicators on bank profitability in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) over the period from 2009 to 2018.Two-panel data estimators have been utilized:Prais-Winsten and Driscoll-Kraay standard models. The empirical analysis reveals that bank-specific determinants were the key factors in explaining profitability in comparison to government and macroeconomic variables.The assets utilization ratio, credit risk ratio, bank liquidity risk ratio, and investment deposit ratio were found positively and significantly related to the bank’s profitability. In contrast, the bank size variable, and the earning assets ratio were found to have a negative impact on the profitability of bank-specific drivers. Similarly, inflation and the growth of gross domestic product were found in both models to have a negative and significant effect on profitability. On the other hand, government effectiveness was found to have a positive and significant influence on the first specification of both models. The study concluded that Saudi-owned banks should focus more on their asset utilization since it is the most important contributor to their profitability. At the same time, the government of Saudi Arabia must enhance the government effectiveness dimensions to be reflected positively on the Saudi financial system.

Most economists agree that the emergence of substantial inflationary pressure in Iraq was due to the monetary growth arising from large increase in the money supply by government to finance enormous budget deficit. This was true especially during the comprehensive sanction imposed on the country between 1990 till 2003. Others point out to exchange rate depreciations as another cause to inflation. Such controversy about the causes of inflation in Iraq has necessitated studying this phenomenon quantitatively. Our main contribution is to assess empirically the effects of money supply, exchange rate, and import on inflation in Iraq over the period 1995–2015. Using the ARDL bounds testing approach, we estimated the long-run effects of those variables on real inflation. In addition, we attempt to draw attention to the impact of changes in global prices on the phenomenon of inflation in Iraq. It is analyzed that money supply, exchange rate and import, changes inflation to 0.59, -0.85, and 0.11 percent points respectively by one percent rise in long-run. The Error Correction model with a negative sign remained statistically significant with the approximately 34% speed of adjustment to restore the equilibrium in the long-run, which was convergent quickly.

This research is an attempt to investigate the causal relationship between the shadow economy and unemployment rate for selected Middle East and North African countries. The Toda -Yamamoto causality approach and panel Granger causality test are applied. The Toda -Yamamoto results reveal bidirectional causality for Algeria only. However, unidirectional causality running from unemployment to shadow economy found for Turkey and Qatar, the vice versa for Bahrain, Jordan, and Lebanon. Moreover, the panel Granger causality results show bidirectional causality for the MENA region when one and three lags are used. Nevertheless, unidirectional causality running from the shadow economy to the unemployment rate is found when two, four, and five lags are used.

Since saving and financial development are vital to economic growth, this research empirically investigates the impact of saving and financial development on economic growth in Turkey. Therefore, a time series data from 1968 until 2017 were tested utilizing both the error correction model (ECM) and the autoregressive distributed lag approach (ARDL). The findings reveal an existence of a short-run and a long-run positive and significant effect of savings and financial development on economic growth. Conventional inputs such as capital and labor proved to be the most important factors in achieving economic growth in Turkey. The study concludes that an appropriate policy mix will enhance domestic saving in the country.

This study examines the main determinants of inflation in Iraq during the period from 1995 to 2017. In this context, this paper focuses on the major sources to explain inflation trend in Iraq. As econometrics technique, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration framework is employed. The main results show that inflation has been caused by an admixture of factors including increase of money supply, and shortage of aggregate supply mirrored by growth of domestic product, which depends heavily on the performance of the oil sector and its price. The imported inflation seems to be another cause of inflation. However, one should not ignore the political instability and the sanction imposed on the country, as well as the invasion followed by the occupation of the country by the USA in 2003. Based on the results reached, the control of inflation in Iraq needs a combination of fiscal and monetary policies.

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between economic growth and its determinants with special focus on gross fixed capital formation, export, import, and financial development for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Therefore, the study utilized an annual data from 1980 till 2014, and employed both the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and the error correction method (ECM) to investigate the long-run and the short-run parameters between the variables. The findings suggest a positive relationship between fixed capital formation, export, in one hand and economic growth in the other hand, both in the short-run and the long-run. In contrast, the financial development variable found to have a negative effect on economic growth in the short-run, however, it turned out to be positive in the long-run. Finally, the import variable showed a negative contribution to growth in the long-run as well as in the short-run. The results are consistent with the theoretical and empirical predictions.

This study investigates the relationship between trade openness, financial development and economic growth for the Kingdom of Bahrain. Time series data are utilized form 1980 till 2012. The vector error correction model (VECM) in combination with innovation of accounting (variance decomposition and impulse response function) analysis are employed to explore the causal relationship between the variables. The stationarity properties of the data and the order of integration are tested using both the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test and the Phillips-Perron (PP) test. All variables are found to be cointegrated indicating the existence of long-run relationship. The empirical findings show that trade openness and financial development have causal impact on economic growth. Conversely, growth is found to have no causal impact on trade and financial development, implying support for “trade-led growth” and “finance-led growth” hypotheses. Furthermore, the results show a short-run causality from financial development to trade openness. The findings suggest that trade openness and financial development are important elements in determining economic growth in Bahrain. Therefore, Bahrain should continue to patronize the development of its financial sector and to allow more trade openness in order to achieve a high and sustainable economic growth.