International Congress on Eurasian Economies

International Conference on Eurasian Economies

17-18 September 2013 – St. Petersburg, RUSSIA

Paper detail

Paper ID : 684
Status : Paper published
Language : English
Topic : Regional Economics
Presenter: Ph.D. candidate Evrim Tören
Session : 4A Growth & Development

On the Source of Macroeconomic Fluctuations in the Middle Eastern and North African Countries: A Structural Vector Autoregression Analysis
On the Source of Macroeconomic Fluctuations in the Middle Eastern and North African Countries: A Structural Vector Autoregression Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the relative importance of various shocks in accounting for output fluctuations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. The macroeconomic shocks are decomposed into country-specific, regional, and global sources by using a small open economy structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. In order to explain output volatility in Middle East and North Africa, the relative importance of each shock in 15 MENA countries is identified in this study. The results show that country-specific factors account for most of the output volatility in the region. For less than half of the countries in the region, global shocks play a significant role in explaining output volatility. Contrary to some findings in the empirical literature, especially on Sub-Saharan Africa, the regional factor does not seem to have a statistically significant impact in any of the countries under consideration. The results are uniform and no statistically significant difference is observed for the countries in the MENA region. Furthermore, oil-exporting and oil-poor countries in the sample do not show any noticeable difference.

JEL codes: E32, C22, F41

Tören, Evrim (2013). "On the Source of Macroeconomic Fluctuations in the Middle Eastern and North African Countries: A Structural Vector Autoregression Analysis" in Proceedings of International Conference of Eurasian Economies 2013, pp.116-124, St. Petersburg, RUSSIA.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36880/C04.00684

Full paper in PDF format.

Session 4A: Growth & Development

Istanbul Beykent University Turkish Central Bank TIKA