The relationship and causality between stock prices and exchange rates has preoccupied the minds of economists, investors and policy makers for a long time. However, the relationship or the direction of causality between these two variables still remains unresolved in both theory and empirics. This study examines panel Granger causality relationship between stock price and exchange rate for selected six MENA countries (Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) over the period of 2005:01 and 2013:12. Panel DOLS and FMOLS methods are used to estimate long-run coefficients. On the other hand, panel based error-correction model is used to perform causality analysis. The findings of FMOLS and DOLS methods indicate that the appreciation of local currency in Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Qatar leads to a reduction in stock prices. Contrary, in Saudi Arabia, the appreciation of local currency increases stock prices. Panel Granger causality analysis shows that there is a unidirectional causality from exchange rate to stock prices in MENA countries.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of exchange-rate stability on real export volume in Turkey, using monthly data for the period February 2001 to January 2010. The Johansen multivariate cointegration method and the parsimonious error-correction model are applied to determine long-run and short-run relationships between real export volume and its determinants. In this study, the conditional variance of the GARCH (1, 1) model is taken as a proxy for exchange-rate stability, and generalized impulse-response functions and variance-decomposition analyses are applied to analyze the dynamic effects of variables on real export volume. The empirical findings suggest that exchangerate stability has a significant positive effect on real export volume, both in the short and the long run.

Contribution/ OriginalityThis study contributes in the existing literature by analyzing the causal relationship between development in the both banking sector and stock market and investment amount in Turkey by using Toda-Yamamoto method.

The female labor participation is recently considered as one of the factors leading to economic development in developing countries by amplifying total labor force as qualitative and quantitative. In this study, the authors investigate the factors affecting female labor participation in developing countries, applying panel data model for 83 developing countries over the period of 1990-2014. Empirical results indicate that u-shaped and incompatibility hypotheses are valid in the developing countries. Additionally, improving education levels and increasing male participation in labor markets lead women to more participate in labor markets. These results show the importance of enhancing education level and therefore the policies towards providing it.

Today, there is a consensus on the contribution of the tourism sector to the economy in Mediterranean countries, which have a significant share in the world tourism. The objective of this paper is to investigate and estimate the effect of the tourism sector on economic growth in Mediterranean countries. This paper employs panel FMOLS and panel DOLS models using data consisting of nine Mediterranean countries over the period 1995-2014. Empirical findings indicate that tourism receipts and tourism arrivals affect economic growth positively in the long-run and that these results are valid as individually, which shows tourism-led growth hypothesis is valid in Mediterranean countries.