Oil rents and economic growth in oil-abundant MENA countries: Governance is the trump card to escape the resource trap

The present paper aims, on the one hand, to test the impact of oil rents on economic growth and examine the main symptoms of the resource curse phenomenon in oil-abundant MENA countries, and on the other hand, to investigate the role of governance in avoiding the resource curse and turning oil rents into a tool for economic diversification in 11 MENA oil exporters (Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen) over the period 1996-2014, by using pooled OLS, fixed effects, random effects and generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators. The main findings indicate that MENA oil exporters’ growth is greatly and positively influenced by oil rents. Likewise, these economies have been diagnosed with resource curse. The results also show that governance is a key ingredient in the diversification recipe, while, oil rents frustrate economic diversification by encouraging rent-seeking activities. The multiplicative interaction term between governance index and oil rents indicates that the combined effect of these two variables is effective in promoting diversification. In a nutshell, the enhancement of MENA oil-exporters’ good governance capabilities is the way out of the resource curse because it can turn oil wealth into a boon and offer these oil-abundant countries more opportunities for economic diversification and thereby can enable them to generate robust and sustainable economic growth

The Impact of Institutional Quality in Attracting Foreign Direct Investment in Algeria

This study examines the impact of institutional quality in attracting FDI in Algeria over the period 1995-2011 using the Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom index which reflects economic institutional quality (EIQ) and two governance indicators, namely: government effectiveness (GE) and voice and accountability (VA) that represent political institutional quality. The Johansen cointegration test has been employed in order to investigate the existence of long-run relationships among the tested variables. Additionally, the vector error correction model (VECM) has been applied to analyze the long-run and short-run dynamic relationships among the various time series, besides using both impulse response functions and variance decomposition. The main results indicate that there is a long run relationship among the tested variables and the VECM confirms the existence of this relationship. It is also revealed that both EIQ and VA have long-term positive effects on FDI inflows in Algeria. In the light of the results obtained from this study, it could be concluded that the improvement of economic freedom and voice and accountability in Algeria can be considered a fruitful plan for providing good investment climate and attracting more FDI inflows in the long term

A ground state solution for a nonhomogeneous elliptic Kirchhoff type problem involving critical growth and Hardy term

This paper concerns singular elliptic Kirchhof’s equations whose nonlinearity has a critical growth and contains an inhomogeneous perturbation in a regular bounded domain of R3. To explore the existence of a ground state solution, we rely on various techniques related to variational methods and the Nehari decomposition

Aproximación al dialecto argelino: la variedad de Orán

Trabajo de grado. Grado en Estudios Árabes e Islámicos. Curso 2018-2019[ES]En el presente trabajo se aborda la evolución de las variedades habladas del árabe, así como los criterios que se siguen a la hora de clasificar dichas variedades (diacrónico, diastrático y diatópico), y la situación lingüística actual del mundo árabe. Dentro de este marco, el foco de atención ha sido la historia y de la situación (socio)lingüística del Mágreb, tomando como ejemplo el caso de Argelia, país del que se han aportado los datos históricos más relevantes en relación con la evolución de la lengua hablada en el país, especialmente datos propios de la época colonial y postcolonial francesa, así como un análisis fonético y fonológico de un corpus extraído de varias entrevistas realizadas a personas cuya lengua materna es el dialecto de la ciudad de Orán. [EN]In this essay we approach the topic concerning the evolution of the Arabic language’s spoken varieties just as the guidelines that are followed when it comes to sorting them (diachronic, diastratic and diatopic), and also the current linguistic situation in the Arab world. In this setting our attention has been focused on the history and on the idiomatic status of the Maghrib, taking as an example the case of Algeria of which we have provided the most important historical datum related to the evolution of the spoken languange in the country, especially the details about the french colonial era and the post-colonial age itself. We present as well a phonetic and phonological analysis of a corpus extracted from several interviews that we carried out towards some people whose first language is the dialect of the Oran’s city

Mesoscale investigation of mass concrete temperature control systems and their consequences on concrete mechanical behaviour.

This study investigates the impact of aggregate and pipe cooling systems on concrete behaviour at a mesoscale level. Firstly, a Chemo-Thermo-Mechanical model is developed to investigate the initial stress state of early age hydration concrete followed by a mechanical analysis of the consequences brought by this initial state. Pipe and aggregate cooled concrete samples have been subjected to tensile and cyclic loadings. The results have been discussed in terms of damage and crack openings. It has been concluded that early age hydration modifies the initial conditions of any concrete structures. Regarding the cyclic behaviour, initial state due to the hydration process leads to permanent displacements corresponding to damage and cracking. The cooling methods improve the mechanical behaviour of concrete

Numerical Modeling of Early-age Effects on the Mechanical Behavior of Concrete Gravity Dams

The control of thermal cracks induced by the effect of early age are the main concerns in concrete dam during the construction stage. Despite its importance, detailed thermal analysis of concrete gravity dams during the construction period is relatively rarely in the literature, eventually because prediction the behavior of concrete gravity dam on early stage requires taking into account the several phenomena and interaction, demands a considerable computational effort. To overcome this drawback, the present paper proposes a numerical modeling strategy to predict the thermo-mechanical behavior of concrete gravity dams during construction periods considering the effect of early age and the construction schedule. The proposed strategy is also used to study the effect of pre-cooling methods on the thermal-mechanical fields on concrete gravity dam during construction process. For this purpose, a Chemo-Thermo-Mechanical model is developed for predicting the behavior of a gravity dam at early stages. Firstly, temperature field model was established and verified with the results reported in the literature. Furthermore, the thermo-mechanical behavior of a concrete gravity dam is performed for two configurations: Early age state with pre-cooling and early age without pre-cooling. Thermal stress analysis was also conducted and results showed that the greatest tensile stresses after construction are developed at the heel of dams and resumption of concreting interface due to the internal restraint imposed by the concrete. The numerical results showed that the pre-cooling methods is an effective way to reduce both the hydration temperature and tensile stress induced by the effect of early age

Different Response Patterns of Beetle Communities to Environmental Factors in Ramsar Wetland, West Algeria

An ecological study was carried out to estimate and measure the importance of environmental factors on the abundance, diversity and regularity of terrestrial beetle communities in the Ramsar wetland (Dayet El Ferd, Algeria). Samples were collected bimonthly for one year, with peripheral reference to the water point along the two transects. A micro-distribution and ecology have been tackled besides the degree of maturity of the wetland are discussed. On the basis of 432 samples and 12341 depicted diverse specimens, 221 species belonging to the Adephaga and Polyphaga equally, have been identified, grouped in 30 families, 71 subfamilies with a net dominance of Carabidae. Bagous argillaceus (Gyllenhall, 1836), Calomera lunulata (Fabricious, 1741) and Morica favieri (Lucas, 1859) were abundant, accounting for 18% of the global fauna; a large number of rare taxa (= present in at least 10 individuals) were found. The diversity and regularity of these communities generate a positive correlation of great importance according to a certain rate of organic matter present in the soil. Maximum diversity is found at the highest levels, while regularity is mainly found at intermediate levels

Characterization of urban forms within the oases settlements and their long-term impact on the outdoor thermal comfort in Tolga territory

Among symbiosis and harmony, there is a close relationship between human settlement and surrounding environment, whereas this link is becoming more and more detached over time. Nowadays, most of big challenges are demonstrated on the environmental balance which is deteriorating the human well-being quality inside cities, and being the imperative actors of the built environment. Accordingly, the oases networks in arid regions, are undergoing serious urban issues which are calling for a new pattern of life style, a truly artificial one. In fact, the transition from the oasis-city to the so-called contemporary city has evoked the production of exogenous urban logics far from being a continuity to ancient settlements and old patterns crowned with their specific Saharan archetypes characterized by compacity, agrarian landscapes, sociability, and their perfect economics’ autonomy model, and which are disappearing progressively under the urban sprawl, also mainly benefiting from the important urbanization and residential programs conducted by the Algerian government. Consequently, from the oasis settlement to the new city model, a failure denouncing several series of mediocre consequences, such as an increasingly urbanization, unlimited urban growth, environmental disturbances of the oases entities, and specifically the hard thermal quality inside the oases urban fabrics. Otherwise, the new urban planning strategies in these lands does not presenting any integration’s shapes towards the environment which were built only for people’s needs in term of residential housing or some specific buildings, in which the main architecture and urban patterns have no place and no value in new cities. Tolga as one of the largest oases territory in North Africa, as an oasis settlement, and a special urban form reveals an architectural and urban disfiguration that threaten its agricultural potential of millions palm trees as well as its oasis livelihood, especially during the hot season. The thermal aspect inside Tolga oases territory claims a major handicap for their local inhabitants, as well as for the dynamic of many activities. Thus, we are supposed through this study, to standing-up among these environmental issues especially about the outdoor thermal comfort variations, we need to note initially problem questions as well as: what future for the oases settlements and the palm groves, which present the main resource of Saharan agriculture under extreme weather conditions? How is the quality of the outdoor thermal comfort throughout the oases urban fabrics? How can be the longterm solutions for the thermal issues which are spreading under the absence of suitable urban planning strategies for these lands as well as a clear land policy to be apply