Where does economic growth in the Middle Eastern and North African countries come from?

Abstract

This study focus on the debate related to the sources of economic growth to show whether it arises from technological progress, physical or human capital accumulation in a selected Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries for the 1970–2014 period. With the assumption of a Harrod-neutral technological progress and panel cointegration analysis, the results give evidence to suggest that capital accumulation contributes more than productivity growth to economic growth in six MENA countries. Estimation outcomes also show that technological progress dominates sources of growth for more than half of the MENA countries. Most of these countries however do not accumulate economic growth from their human capital except for resources-rich and labor-importing MENA countries.