The purpose of this article is to investigate how the fiscal deficit affects economic growth in five Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries: Bahrain, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. These economies are bewildered by their high deficit levels, and their weak investment growth keeps them from achieving economic growth. This investigation, which spans the years 1995 through 2020, uses the ARDL (autoregressive distributed lag) methodology. The author selected four variables for this study: economic growth serves as the dependent variable, while the set of independent variables includes economic growth (GDPG), gross fixed capital formation as a percentage of GDP (GFCF), deficit as a percentage of GDP (DEFICIT), and inflation (INF). The long-run results showed that there is a negative link between economic growth and deficit; however, a positive relationship existed between inflation and economic growth. Gross fixed capital formation did not show any significant relationship with economic growth in the long run. In the short run, the results showed that inflation has a negative relationship with economic growth. The remaining variables, deficit, and gross fixed capital formation did not show a significant relationship with economic growth.

This study investigates the impact of remittances on income inequality in Lebanon using annual time-series data for the years 2000–2023. Applying Johansen’s cointegration test, with financial development (FD), GDP, and household consumption expenditure (HCE) as the control variables, the study examines the long-run and short-run relationship between remittances and inequality. The study also considers the moderating impacts of FD and HCE to account for their indirect role in the remittance–inequality relationship. Dynamic relations are also examined by using impulse response functions (IRFs) and Forecast Error Variance Decomposition (FEVD) analyses. The long-run model estimates validate that remittances and income inequality are significantly and negatively related, i.e., increased remittance receipts serve to reduce income inequality in Lebanon. Remittance effects, however, are statistically insignificant in the short run. Interestingly, the results reveal that financial development weakens the remittances’ inequality-reducing effect, dampening their impact. Contrarily, a higher household consumption expenditure slightly strengthens the inequality-reducing effect of remittances. A comparison between the pre- and post-2019 periods reveals that the explanatory strength of remittances weakened during times of economic crisis, since the function of remittances was different during times of economic distress. Based on these findings, this study recommends that Lebanon not only promote financial development but also focus on financial inclusion, improve social safety nets, and provide inclusive economic growth to maximize remittance inflow benefits and efficiently reduce inequality.