Geographical Features vs. Institutional Factors : New Perspectives on the Growth of Africa and Middle-East

Olivier Parent (1) , Abdallah Zouache (2)

1 UC - University of Cincinnati
2 GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon - Saint-Etienne

This paper examines Africa's and Middle East's growth performance for the period 1990- 2005. It employs a Bayesian Model Averaging method that constructs estimates as a weighted average of Spatial Autoregressive estimates for every possible combination of included variables. One of the results of the paper is that the inclusion of spatial dependencies has a direct impact on the determinants of growth in Africa and Middle-East. Indeed, the methodology used in the paper offers an interesting response to the institution/geography debate on the explanation of growth and development. In particular, our methodology allows a selection of the institutional variables that count to explain low development since the geographical variables are partially integrated in the spatial dependence effect.

Domaines: Economies et finances

Olivier Parent, Abdallah Zouache. Geographical Features vs. Institutional Factors : New Perspectives on the Growth of Africa and Middle-East. 2009, 30 p. ⟨hal-00430382⟩