Since the 1990s, the promotion of good governance has been a priority for major international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.  This article aims to estimate the effect of institutional development on financial development in MENA countries during the period 1996 to 2013.  Drawing on Demetriades and Luintel (1996) and Ito (2006), the econometric approach used is based on the GMM, the autocorrelation test for errors of Arellano and Bond (1991), and the over-identification test of Sargan for dynamic panel data. The results derived from this study show a considerable delay in financial development in MENA countries compared to several other emerging countries in Asia and Latin America. Furthermore, it shows a negative effect of institutional development on financial development.  This unexpected relationship between these two variables has two explanations. First, the delusory level of institutional development of some countries in the region actually remains under the threshold beyond which it begins to positively affect the financial sector. Second, the political unrest experienced by the region during the study period has encouraged the informal financial sector to the detriment of the formal sector.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth in non-oil countries in the Middle East and North Africa (non-oil-MENA) during the period from 2000 to 2014. The Pedroni (2000) test shows that there is a long-term cointegration relationship between those variables; however, the Granger causality test in the vector error correction model (VECM) shows that this relationship is bidirectional in the short and long term. Thus, to ensure sustainable economic growth without pollution and to reduce dependence on abroad, renewable energies can be chosen as substitutes for conventional energies in the non-oil-MENA countries. Design/methodology/approach First, LLC and IPS unit root tests are used to test the variables stationarity; and, second, Pedroni panel cointegration and Engle–Granger causality by VECM analysis are used to check the relationship between the studied variables. Findings Empirical results show that the renewable energy consumption and economic growth are cointegrated and that there are two-way causal relationships between them in the long and in the short term. These countries must therefore encourage the consumption of renewable energy instead of traditional energy to reduce their dependence on energy from abroad and CO2 pollution. Originality/value The originality of this work lies in the measurements of the study variables and the empirical investigation methods used.