Many low-and middle-income countries have many micro and small but only a very few medium-sized and large enterprises. Micro and small firms seem to have difficulties growing into medium-sized companies. This is problematic because it is medium-sized companies that tend to be the main creators of higher quality and better-paid employment, motors of innovation and economic diversification, and future exporters.

Most energy intensive industries are high carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters. As CO2 emissions show large discrepancies between regions, it is important to test for spatial dependence when estimating emissions. The present study thus examines spatial dependence of CO2 emissions for the twenty-seven governorates of Egypt over the period 2007-2016. Determinants of CO2 emissions include road network density, investments in fixed assets, the structure of economic activity, the share of females, and the various levels of education in the regions’ respective population. Incorporating the spatial dimension, as well as using female and educational levels amongst the determinants, are contributions to research done on CO2 emissions in Egypt. Estimation results indicate that CO2 emissions across governorates are spatially-random rather than spatially-dependent. The study therefore uses a generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel model. The lag of CO2 emissions per capita, net fixed capital formation, share of illiterates in the working age population, and the share of services in economic activity are significant and have positive effects (increasing emissions). The share of females in working age population, and the share of agriculture in economic activity are significant and have negative effects (diminishing emissions). Policy implications based on the study results are given.

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Egypt's rate of unemployment averaged 11% over the period 1993-2018. Although this has motivated abundant research, it has focused on nationwide unemployment, with little attention to unemployment at the regional (i.e., governorate) level. Indeed, there are wide disparities in unemployment among governorates. Moreover, high unemployment governorates may be clustered together in a way that yields spatial autocorrelation. The present paper therefore fills this gap in empirical literature by analysing unemployment by region using a spatial panel data model (for 27 governorates over the 2006-2016 period). It establishes the existence of (positive) spatial dependence in regional unemployment. Regional unemployment is further found to be affected by low levels of education among the governorates' populations (illiterates, and holders of intermediate and above intermediates) pointing to a mismatch between the skills demanded and the skills supplied at the governorate level. Though services have the highest share in average employment across governorates (0.64), followed by agriculture (0.26), neither of the two indicators (proxies) of activity mix is found to be statistically significant. Other variables expected to affect regional unemployment were not statistically significant (female and youth unemployment, despite high prevalence of both female and youth unemployment across the governorates of Egypt). Policy implications include: the pooling of efforts between neighbouring governorates to address unemployment; matching leading activities in the governorates with the ranks of the unemployed; using apprenticeship schemes; increasing female labour force participation; and promoting private sector job creation.

Egypt’s heavy reliance on energy- and capital-intensive industries currently hinders its drive towards achieving sustainable development goals. This paper studies environmental total factor productivity (ETFP) for ten energy-intensive industries using the Malmquist index and data envelopment analysis (DEA) for the period 2002-2014. Through incorporating CO2 emissions by energy intensive industries, DEA helps identify both environmentally-efficient and inefficient industries. Findings indicate that: i) ETFP has remained almost unchanged for the 10 industries, with ‘technical progress’ improvement almost fully outweighed by an efficiency deterioration, ii) excluding the environmental component indeed yields overestimated total factor productivity (TFP). In its estimation of ETFP, the paper adds to exiting empirical literature since no similar estimation has been done for Egypt. Results may be relevant to other countries with similar industrial structures. Policy implications include the reliance on renewable sources of energy, bearing directly on the achievement of the seventh, ninth and twelfth SDG goals. Keywords: environmental total factor productivity; energy intensive industries; data envelopment analysis; Egypt