Intensidad en empleo a largo plazo del crecimiento del producto sectorial en Túnez

Se examina la capacidad a largo plazo de Túnez de generar empleo. Con datos de panel de 15 sectores económicos de 1983–2010, los autores estiman sus elasticidades producto‐empleo a largo plazo utilizando el estimador de media grupal. Según sus resultados, la política económica debería orientarse a los sectores más intensivos en empleo: servicios y manufacturas exportadoras. Destaca la incapacidad del sector minero de absorber mano de obra, por lo que la inversión en el mismo no será productiva; asimismo, el crecimiento sin empleo a largo plazo de la hotelería y restauración induce a pensar que deberían fomentarse más las actividades paraturísticas que las turísticas.     

Financial development,ICT diffusion and economic growth: Lessons from MENA region

This paper aims to test jointly two economic puzzles: the effect of financial development and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on economic growth. Theories predict a positive effect of financial development and ICT on growth but empirical studies on these relationships produced mixed results. Further, we investigate the interaction between financial development and ICT Diffusion to test whether the impact of financial development on growth is strengthened by better ICT infrastructure. In this paper we assess empirically these relationships in some MENA countries. The empirical study is based on estimation of a dynamic panel model with system GMM estimators. There are three main findings. First, our empirical results join empirical literature that find a negative direct effect of financial development on economic growth. This ambiguous relationship may be linked to many phenomenons but there are not yet clear explanations of this puzzle. Second, the estimates reveal a positive and significant direct effect of ICT proxies on economic growth. This implies that MENA countries need to reinforce their ICT policies and improve using of new Information and Communication Technology. Finally, the interaction between ICT penetration and financial development is found positive and significant in the growth regression. This implies that economies in Mena region can benefit from financial development only once a threshold of ICT development is reached.     

The Dynamic Relationship Between Corruption–Inflation: Evidence From Panel Vector Autoregression

This paper aims to explain the mixed causality nexus between corruption and inflation. For that, we apply a panel vector autoregression model on a large sample of 180 countries over the period 1996–2014. Using two corruption indexes and subsample estimations, results provide evidence that the inflation–corruption nexus is bidirectional. The causal effect is more important from corruption to inflation. Interactions remain significant but heterogeneous across subsamples with different income levels. The corruption effect is persistent only in low–middle income economies and its adverse effect on inflation is weaker in high‐income economies. The two‐way relationship between inflation and corruption reflects the inability to control inflation and the situation of the poverty trap in some countries.