DOES ENTREPRENEURSHIP REALLY ENHANCE ECONOMIC AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE MENA REGION?

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute empirically to the ambiguous debate on the link between entrepreneurship and economic development in Middle East and North African countries. by applying a balanced Panel data with random effects methodology for eight MENA developing countries (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) over the period (2006 -2017), our findings indicate that entrepreneurship fails to return any significant impact on economic and human development in the study countries, meanwhile this latter is positively influenced by the increase of total population, financial development, and the money supply, consequently we turn these results to several discussed factors in our analysis such as the predominant type of entrepreneurship, institutions and the misallocation of entrepreneurial ability. Concerning policy implications, the analysis recommends that policymakers should examine carefully the structure of national entrepreneurship and implement the appropriate institutions in order to extend entrepreneurial opportunities