Volume 21, Issue 2

The paper examines the reasons for growth erosion in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP) region in the period preceding the Covid-19 crisis. Over the past two decades before the crisis the regions’ growth has been lower relative to its peers, despite facing similar circumstances as those countries, such as low oil prices and weak external demand. The paper argues that key reasons for growth erosion in MENAP have been domestic, primarily negative total factor productivity, weak preparedness for shocks, insufficient fiscal buffers, unsystematic fiscal adjustment with arbitrary cuts in investment, and low investment efficiency. External factors—the decline in oil and other commodity prices, weak external demand, and geopolitical tensions—have also been important, but mainly for oil exporters. Key policy options to reinvigorate growth include leveraging technology and trade to improve productivity, developing a macroeconomic risk management system, implementing growth-friendly fiscal adjustment, improving growth inclusiveness, and fostering the private sector.

This paper investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the performance of Islamic insurance versus conventional insurance firms in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries. Using Dynamic Capabilities theory and Resource Dependence Theory, the study examines the reasons behind the more significant performance reduction in Islamic insurance firms during the pandemic. Using firm- and country-level panel data from 425 insurance firms for 7 years (2016–2022) and employing OLS, RE, and GMM regression models, the analysis focuses on Return of Assets (ROA) and Asset Turnover Ratio as performance measures. The results indicate that Islamic insurance firms exhibited a greater reduction in performance, during the pandemic, compared to conventional firms, primarily due to weaker liquidity management and operational flexibility. Cash from operating activities (COA) was the key factor of lack of liquidity management, contributing to the underperformance of Islamic insurance firms during the pandemic. The findings highlight the need for improved liquidity management approaches in Islamic insurance firms to increase their resilience to future economic shocks.

This study examines the distributional asymmetric effects of macroeconomic variables – per capita income, inflation, public education spending, domestic investment, and migrants’ remittances – on human capital formation in Egypt (1980–2023). Using the residual augmented least squares-Engle–Granger (RALS-EG) cointegration test and the quantile autoregressive distributed lag error-correction (QARDL-EC) model, the study explores short- and long-term dynamics across quantiles. Main findings indicate substantial distributional asymmetries: inflation and per capita income exert a pronounced impact on human capital at extreme quantiles, whereas their impacts are minimal at median quantiles. Domestic investment demonstrates no influence; however, remittances reveal a cumulative effect that becomes detrimental at high quantiles, indicating possible “brain drain” externalities. Public education expenditure exhibits significant distributional imbalance, highlighting inefficiencies in resource distribution. The study concludes that enhancing the efficiency of public education expenditures is more imperative than augmenting budgets. Furthermore, remittances must be purposefully allocated to productive expenditures, including vocational training, technology-oriented research and development, and skill enhancement, to alleviate negative impacts. It is essential aligning growth-oriented policies with macroeconomic stability measures, such as inflation targeting, for sustainable human capital development. This study innovatively constructs Egypt’s quantitative human capital index with Kraay’s (2018. “Methodology for a World Bank Human Capital Index.” In World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8593 . Washington: World Bank) approach, providing new perspectives on human capital development in emerging economies.