A Versus K Revisited: Evidence from Selected MENA Countries

Aamer Abu-Qarn () and Suleiman Abu-Bader ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper reconsiders the A versus K debate, namely, which factor is the leading contributor to economic growth? productivity gains (A) or factor accumulation (K). The growth accounting analysis is conducted for ten Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries over the period 1960-1998. The long-run share of capital in national income is estimated using cointegration (country-specific) and panel data (region-specific) methods. We find that for most of the countries in our sample the share of capital is much higher than the conventional share of 0.3-0.4. The growth accounting exercise conducted with the incorporation of human capital reveals that for the MENA region the contribution of productivity gains to economic growth is negligible and frequently even detrimental. Thus, we conclude that it is factor (both physical and human) accumulation that drives the economic performance of MENA economies.

Keywords: Growth Accounting; Productivity and Factor Accumulation; MENA; Middle-East; Cointegration; Panel Data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 C23 O47 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1114/1/MPRA_paper_1114.pdf original version (application/pdf)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/22280/1/MPRA_paper_22280.pdf revised version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A VERSUS K REVISITED:EVIDENCE FROM SELECTED MENA COUNTRIES (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:1114

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().