2018) Good neighbours matter: economic geography and the diffusion of human rights. Spatial Economic Analysis, 13 (3) . pp. 319-337.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment on unemployment in six countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey, as this region is considered one of the most regions in the world with a high rate of unemployment. The study employed panel data for the period from 1990 to 2018, where three economic models were used to examine the impact of FDI on unemployment, male unemployment, and female unemployment, in the long run, using the Fixed Effect Model (FEM) and Random Effect Model (REM), in addition to finding the causal relationship in the short term using Panel VAR (Granger causality tests). The results showed that FDI reduces the unemployment rate, the male unemployment rate, and the female unemployment rate in the long run. The results of the study also revealed that there is no causal relationship in the short term between FDI and unemployment in its various forms, while there is a bidirectional causal relationship between FDI and exports according to the three economic models. This paper is the first of its kind in terms of examining the effect of FDI on unemployment in the six countries as a grouped and a sample of the MENA region.

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PurposeThis research develops a dynamic theoretical framework to study the interaction between migrants' remittances and entrepreneurship, together with the effect of these phenomena on inequality and income distribution.Design/methodology/approachIt is based on an overlapping generations model in which inequalities are explained by a combination of capital market imperfections and fixed costs of investment. Together, these features give rise to credit rationing such that some members of the population are denied opportunities that would otherwise make them better off. Within this framework, the author studies the implications of remittances associated with child migration.FindingsThe author considers two alternative scenarios which differ according to who receives remittances – parents or siblings. The author found that when migrant children send remittances to their parents, such transfer would result in higher bequests though not necessarily initiate entrepreneurial activities and a reduction in the extent of inequality. On the other hand, when migrant children send remittances to their siblings, such transfer would not only result in greater bequests, but also it reduces the critical level of wealth needed to get access to capital market, implying that remittance flow generates investment opportunity to even poorer members of the society.Practical implicationsTo enhance the income equalising effect of remittances, the government might consider providing extended support to households who are sending (relatively) younger members of the family abroad to earn higher wages.Originality/valueStudying how dynamic effects of remittances depend critically on the heterogeneity of recipients offers a further perspective that has not been explored before.

This paper investigates the geo-political and international economic aspects of human rights performance using a pooled cross-section time-series data set. We start with simple descriptive accounts of the recent geographic history of human rights performance. We then test for basic economic effects of income and then apply tools from the spatial economics literature to examine the degree to which clusters of relative human rights performance exist. Using spatial weighting models we analyse the spatial impact of proximity and human rights performance of neghbours on overall levels of human rights performance. Unlike previous studies, our approach treats this spatial impact as partly endogenous: one country's human rights performance may affect its neighbours through a variety of potential geographical spillover mechanisms. The spatial weighting models take into account size and distance of neighbours in order to compare each country's human rights performance with what would be predicted by regression on a weighted average of its neighbours' performance. The findings sugest that there are (a) geographical clusters of human rights performance and (b) size and proximity effects for human rights performance, both of which have significant implications for the promotion and protection of human rights.