Financial inclusion, institutional quality, and economic growth in MENA countries: some evidence from panel cointegration

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to examine financial inclusion indicators with some institutional quality indicators to better understand their combined effect on economic growth in the context of MENA region using panel cointegration tests. The study covers a sample of 16 countries during the 1997–2018 period. The main findings show a positive connection between economic growth and institutional quality in the long run. Moreover, institutional quality negatively affects financial inclusion while no effect of financial inclusion on economic growth was found. These results show that the most of MENA countries have not reached the level of institutional quality, beyond which the financial inclusion can act as a growth factor.

KEYWORDS:

• Financial inclusion
• economic growth
• institutions
• MENA
• panel cointegration test

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C23
• E44
• G21
• O43

Acknowledgments

I thank the anonymous referee(s) and the editor(s) for their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The other statistics are available upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jamel Boukhatem

Jamel Boukhatem is full professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Tunis. Jamel Boukhatem holds a PhD in Economics (University of Paris West Nanterre la Defense) and a Habilitation for Supervising Doctoral Research in Economics (University of Tunis El-Manar). His research focuses on applied economics and monetary and financial macroeconomics. He has published papers in several peer-reviewed journals.

Fatma Ben Moussa

Fatma Ben Moussa is an associate professor of finance at the Department of Finance, High School of Economic and Commercial Sciences of Tunis, Tunisia. Fatma Ben Moussa holds a PhD in Finance (University of Manouba, Tunisia) and a Habilitation for Supervising Doctoral Research in Finance (University of Tunis). She is also member of the laboratory International Finance Group – Tunisia (IFGT). Her research focuses on corporate governance, Islamic banking and financial crisis, risk taking behavior of financial institutions and microstructure of financial markets. An active researcher, Fatma Ben Moussa has published several papers in peer reviewed journals including scopus index journal of Taylor & Francis and conferences of national and international repute. She has participated in several international conferences and has given invited lectures.