Narrow Results

This chapter aims to assess the effect of corruption on the relationship between financial development and economic complexity in MENA. To this end, we estimate a panel data model on 21 MENA countries between 1995 and 2020 using the double least squares method. Over-all, the analysis shows significant heterogeneous results conditional on corruption. Specifically, corruption worsens the effect of financial access, and the depth and efficiency of economic complexity over the sample period. In contrast, it improves the effect of financial stability on economic complexity in the region. The results appear to be robust to an alternative estimation technique.