منظومة التكافل الاجتماعي و مثلث النمو و الفقر و التوزيع في الاقتصاد العربي

Abstract EN

This paper has two broad objectives.

The first is to unravel the relationship between growth and distribution in the Arab Economy on the one hand and to study the unemployment-poverty nexus on the other.

The second is to investigate the distributive efficiency of private and social safety nets and their ability to target the poor.

Utilizing macro-micro framework and databases, the paper applies a panel data model to explore the relationship between income levels, growth and distribution.

At the micro level it deploys continuous and biprobit models and explores the joint determinants of poverty and unemployment.

Salient findings are as follows.

First, the Arab Economy refutes the Kuznet's hypothesis regarding the U-shaped income distribution relationship.

Second, unemployment and poverty are jointly determined and are influenced by aggregate and micro-level variables.

Third, private social safety nets are more effective than public safety nets in targeting the needy.

The findings call for the implementation of policies that ensure the efficacy of private and public safety nets as instruments of poverty eradication and of achieving a more equitable income distribution.