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Is there a Kuznets Curve in the Arab Region? An Empirical Investigation

  • Adham Sayed EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 21, 2020

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical study of the Kuznets curve in Arab countries using a dataset from 12 Arab countries over the period between 1990 and 2015. The analysis is carried out by employing a panel data method, mainly the fixed-effect and interactive fixed-effect models, which take into account the economic integration of countries, and the frequent political, financial and social shocks. Our results show that the Kuznets curve does not characterize economic development in the Arab region and that trade, urbanization and education positively impact income inequality.

JEL Classification: O15; C33; N35

Corresponding author: Adham Sayed, Ph.D., Huazhong University of Science and Technology, School of Economics, Wuhan, China, E-mail:

Appendix
Figure A1: Top 10% national income share across the world, 2016.
Figure A1:

Top 10% national income share across the world, 2016.

Table A1:

Descriptive statistics.

VariableObsMeanStd. dev.MinMax
INQ3120.553720.627510.46010.73009
GDPPC31247,812.240,841.63772.8139390.9
URB3098,429,0999,292,595437,1143.96e+07
TRA28990.694236.04100.0209210.16
EDU2870.544810.125040.2190.787

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Received: 2020-01-11
Accepted: 2020-08-04
Published Online: 2020-09-21

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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