FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION IN FIVE SELECTED MENA COUNTRIES: AN AGE- PERIOD-COHORT ANALYSIS (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia)

Moundir Lassassi and Aysit Tansel

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This paper considers the female labor force participation (FLFP) behavior over the past decade in five MENA countries namely, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Tunisia. Low FLFP rates in these countries, as it is in other MENA countries, are well documented. We conduct synthetic panel analysis using age-period-cohort (APC) methodology and decompose FLFP rates into age, period and cohort effects. We present our results with Hanoch-Honig/Deaton-Paxson normalization and maximum entropy estimation approaches to the APC methodology in order to observe robustness of our results. We first study the aggregate FLFP and note the differentials in age, period and cohort effects across the countries we consider.The analysis is carried also out by rural/urban regional differentiation, marital status and educational attainment. Implications of our results for possible government policies to increase FLFP rates are discussed.

Premature Deindustrialisation: The International Evidence

Emre Özçelik and Erdal Özmen

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We investigate patterns and globalisation-related causes of premature deindustrialisation (PD) using a large panel of advanced (AE), emerging (EME) and developing (DE) economies. We find that, PD tends to be the case for all EME and DE, except E. Asian countries. African countries appear to be hit worst by PD. Globalisation-related determinants of PD vary across country groups. Higher trade openness leads to deindustrialisation in DE. Trade openness, however, enhances dependent industrialisation in Latin American countries and the ‘factory economies’ of E. Asia, which have stronger linkages to global value chains. It is our contention that development possibilities can be expanded by aiming at higher technology activities and more intense forward-linkages to global value chains. Our findings suggest that such strategic industrial policies at the levels of EME and DE have the potential to generate growth convergence at international level. It is our contention that development possibilities can be expanded by aiming at more intense linkages to global value chains, but proactive industrial policies at the levels of EME and DE are required to achieve such expansion.