خلاصة:
The main objective of this study is to estimate the spatial spillover effects of the economic growth among the selected countries of MENA region. For this purpose, the Spatial Durbin Model in the framework of spatial dynamic panel data was estimated during the period of 1970-2010. The spatial Diagnostic tests affirmed the occurrence of spatial positive autocorrelation phenomenon for the real per capita income. The obtained results indicated the positive spatial spillover of the economic growth among the MENA countries and the spatial elasticity of per capita GDP was estimated 0.39 percent. Also, according to visualization results, Iran has been surrounded by countries with high per capita income; so opportunity to benefit through the creation of artificial growth poles and economic collaboration with their adjacent countries is available for Iran. Other policy implications are discussed.
ملخص الجهاز:
The contributions of this study are the investigation of the convergence hypothesis of per capita income under the regional spatial spillover effects of economic growth and the consideration of time and country specific fixed effects in order to abandon Omitted Variable Bias (OVB).
(2013) in a study using spatial econometric models in panel data structure and stipulating fixed and dynamic weighted matrices, have assessed the effects of economic growth spillover through trading and neighborhood between 26 countries member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) during the time 1970-2005.
Also, by reviewing the empirical studies, no study has been carried out titled with "spatial convergence and economic growth spillover in the countries of MENA region" to date.
1 Mode l Es timation As the spatial diagnostic tests showed, the variable of real per capita income of the countries in the MENA region has spatial positive autocorrelation, and accordingly not considering this spatial dependency leads to estimation error and statistical inference resulting from it will be unreliable, that existing this fact is apparent at the previous studies that have investigated convergence by not taking into account space dimension.
The study is different to other studies in two important aspects; first, the test of regional convergence hypothesis for the MENA countries in under the spatial spillover effects of economic growth, and second, avoiding omitted variable bias with the estimation of Solow model in the framework of spatial dynamic panel data considering the country and time fixed effects.