Blog

Part II of this six-part series provides a brief overview of the structure of equity markets and capitalization across the Arab world.   Equity markets can be a valuable, dynamic mechanism for price discovery—facilitating capital investment, entrepreneurial equity finance, privatization, corporate restructuring, and corporate governance (Rocha et al. 2011). Efficient markets would be liquid, allowing trade to occur always with small spreads between ask and bid prices. They would enable market-based valuation of listed companies. To operate efficiently, markets would...Read More

Innovation initiatives across the Arab world are growing, often through innovation clusters, IT hubs, and national champions. One goal is to create a concentration or “spikiness” of innovation efforts. Such patterns are also prevalent globally and range from more state-centric approaches such as in China’s Guangdong Province to innovation hubs in the United States, which have evolved hand-in-hand with research universities and institutions supporting an entrepreneurial community. National champions play a critical part. In the Republic of Korea, for example, Samsung, LG, and SK...Read More

Sound financial infrastructure is characterized by reliable and easily accessible financial information, credible and transparent commercial regulation and effective legal dispute resolutions mechanisms.  Arab countries’ financial infrastructure still leaves to be desired and limits the expansion of the region’s financial systems and their ability to support socioeconomic development.   In terms of the financial information infrastructure, Arab countries do well, but could improve.  Data and information providers, such as the Prime Holding and Zawya, collect,...Read More

Since the 1980s, health indicators in Egypt have improved significantly but with citizens bearing a heavy health expenditures burden. Life expectancy increased from about 57 in the early 1980s to 73.5 in the early 2010s, slightly higher than the average for Arab countries. At 75.5 years, female life expectancy is slightly higher than male life expectancy.[1] The increase reflects improvements in water and sanitation and health provision services that enabled reductions in mortality rates.[2] However, total health expenditures in gross domestic product (GDP) remain less than half...Read More