Investigating Nexus among Transportation, Financial Inclusion and Economic Growth in MENA Region

نوع المستند : المقالة الأصلية

المؤلف

Assistant Professor of Economics College of International Transport and Logistics

المستخلص

The paper studied nexus among transportation, financial inclusion, and economic growth in MENA region. The paper calculated three-dimensional index of financial inclusion (IFI) from 2000 till 2020 for 21 MENA countries. Also, three-dimensional index of transportation (ITR) calculated for 18 MENA countries from 2005 till 2019 including maritime, air and road transport. The analysis examined short and long run links between IFI, ITR and GDP, with further analysis of financial inclusion dimensions impact on transportation for 16 MENA countries from 2005 till 2019. The study employed Cross-Section Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag (CS-ARDL), and bias error correction half-panel Jackknife approaches, in addition to Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) causality test. The approaches employed, provide robust results under existence of Cross-Sectional Dependence CD, biasness and slope heterogeneity. The study results show bidirectional relationships between IFI ITR, GDP IFI, and ITR GDP. Also, the analysis found positive significant impact of banking penetration and access to banking services on transportation, with weak impact of usage of banking services which need to be addressed in future financial policies. The study recommends strengthening financial inclusion and integration to promote transportation that stimulate economic growth in MENA region.  

الكلمات الرئيسية