Growth Acceleration Determinants in East Asia and MENA: Empirical Evidence from Mixed Effect Models

Abstract

This study is aimed at studying the main factors that determine the process of accelerating economic growth in countries located in East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa between 1996 and 2019. The sample of countries included: Algeria; Bahrain; China; Egypt, Arab Republic; Hong Kong; Indonesia; Iraq; Japan; Jordan; Korea, Republic of; Kuwait; Malaysia; Mauritania; Morocco; Philippines; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; Sudan; Thailand; Tunisia; United Arab Emirates; Yemen. The research is based on the methodology of Haussmann, Pritchett and Rodrik (2005), according to which 3 criteria of accelerated economic growth are used: 1) to characterize the process of acceleration itself growth of GDP per capita by 2%; 2) to characterize cases of rapid growth – annual growth rates for eight years are more than 3.5%; 3) to characterize the achievement of sustainable acceleration GDP per capita is greater than the highest level after the onset of the acceleration phase. As the main determinants of accelerated economic growth, the characteristics of institutional quality (the rule of law, control of corruption and the quality of regulation), factors of accumulation (the share of gross accumulation of fixed capital in GDP and characteristics of human capital through the measurement of the duration of education and the profitability of education), the openness of trade ( share of trade to GDP) and natural resources (share of revenues from natural resources to GDP). The research was carried out using Probit, Logit and Tobit models. Logit and Probit modeling made it possible to assess the impact on the acceleration of economic growth: changes in human capital as insignificantly positive; trade openness – as a minor positive, changes in natural resources as a significant positive, increase in the share of investment in GDP – as the largest positive. An increase in institutional quality does not lead to an increase in the chances of the studied countries (the rule of law index has a slight positive effect, the corruption control index has a slight negative effect, the only positive effect that deserves attention concerns the regulation quality index). The results of Tobit modeling demonstrate a statistically significant positive impact of institutional quality, regulatory quality, rule of law, investment and natural resources on the acceleration of economic growth. Thus, the acceleration of economic growth observed in the countries of East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa is a direct result of successful policies aimed at improving institutional quality, promoting investment and harnessing the positive impact of natural resources.