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The Nexus Between Business-Investment Climate and Firm Performance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region

Author

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  • Eleftherios Giovanis

    (Manchester Metropolitan University)

  • Oznur Ozdamar

Abstract

Business and investment climate indicators are relations between the public and private sectors. They may take the form of formal, regular, and informal interactions and their scope can include the economy as a whole or they may target specific types of firms in specific sectors or certain policy processes. Effective business and investment climate is important, because it can lead to a higher rate of investment, profits, and improved productivity, through the creation of an institutional environment, where the state provides high quality public goods, including infrastructure, political stability, and strategies for reducing consumption, fair and effective public administration. This study aims to explore the impact of business-investment climate on firm’s value added, labour and total factor productivity (TFP) in a sample of six countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and Turkey. The analysis relies on micro-level data derived from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys over the period 2006-2016. To reduce endogeneity coming from possible reverse causality and the perceptions about business climate we follow an instrumental variables (IV) approach applying the two-stage least squares (2SLS) method. Based on our favoured 2SLS estimates the obstacles in business climate may reduce the firm performance measures by 15-40 per cent. These findings indicate the importance of the quality in business climate and how the improvement in its effectiveness can have a very considerable positive impact on firms’ performance and thus in the overall economic growth of a country.

Suggested Citation

  • Eleftherios Giovanis & Oznur Ozdamar, 2018. "The Nexus Between Business-Investment Climate and Firm Performance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region," Working Papers 1277, Economic Research Forum, revised 26 Dec 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1277
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • K15 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Civil Law; Common Law
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • O49 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Other

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