This study examines the relationship between national research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) budgets - both in total and split into clean and fossil categories - and environmental quality, as measured by the Load Capacity Factor (LCF). The analysis covers eight advanced economies from January 1990 to December 2023 and applies a kernel-based quantile method designed to capture non-linear and heterogeneous effects. The results indicate that the link between energy budgets and environmental outcomes is not uniform across countries or quantiles. Moreover, aggregate and clean energy budgets show consistent positive impacts in Germany, the United States, and Sweden, particularly at higher levels of technological maturity and environmental performance, which supports the presence of threshold effects. On the other hand, France and Norway exhibit weak or negative associations, which are likely explained by energy system saturation or misaligned RD&D strategies. Meanwhile, dirty energy budgets produce limited benefits, with some short-term improvements at low environmental performance levels in Canada and Australia. Therefore, clean energy budgets are more likely to generate reliable gains, especially in countries with strong innovation capacity and supporting infrastructure. However, mixed results are found in Japan, France, and Sweden. Based on these findings, RD&D policies should be context-specific and aligned with the maturity of energy systems, the level of innovation, and prevailing environmental conditions. Instead of uniformly increasing RD&D budgets, policymakers in leading investor countries should focus on targeted allocations to clean energy, supported by enabling infrastructure and appropriate regulatory frameworks, in order to maximize environmental gains.

The relationship between corruption and economic growth has long been dealt with in the literature. Yet, no consensus has been drawn about the way how corruption might affect economic growth. This paper aims at revisiting the relationship between corruption and growth in the context of Arab countries using a panel threshold model with smooth transition (PSTR). The study covers 14 Arab countries over a period from 2007 to 2017. Our results show that the institutional quality variable divide the sample into two regimes. In the first regime (low institutional quality), reducing corruption risk hinders economic growth. The second regime (high institutional quality) stipulates that a lower risk of corruption will have a positive effect on economic growth. The results on a country basis reveal two heterogenous groups and one homogenous group in terms of hydrocarbons endowment: (1) Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon Sudan ,Syria and UEA are in favor of “grease in the wheels” hypothesis, (2) Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco and Tunisia demonstrate “the sand in the wheel” hypothesis and (3) Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar showed a strong support toward “the sand in the wheel” hypothesis.

The present research paper seeks to investigate the channels through which oil price shocks pass-through into inflation in Algeria between 2002 and 2021 by focusing on the relative importance of each channel. The methodology we adopt here attempts to disentangle the possible effects of these channels on inflation after experiencing an oil price shock. Our results indicate the relative importance of three channels depending on the time horizon basis. In the short-run, the channels can be ranked as follows: (1) Public spending channel (2) Exchange rate channel and (3) the Money supply channel. In the long-run, we found the following ranking: (1) Money supply channel (2) Exchange rate channel and (3) Public spending channel. Taking into consideration the most relevant shocks the Algerian economy has gone through between 2002 and 2021, we emphasized the role and the importance of the public spending channel.

In this paper, we re-assess the nexus between various institutional indicators and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in 16 Arab countries for the period (1985-2017) by employing the system Generalized Method of Moments. We contribute to existing literature in three ways: First, the impact of each institutional quality indicator on FDI flows is examined separately. Second, construct an institutional index in order to capture the overall impact of institutions on FDI. Finally, the paper also looks at the impact of the Arab Spring on FDI flows. Based on dynamic panel models, the empirical results show that some institutional indicators are more important than others in attracting more FDI inflows. The results indicate that, the investment profile, law and order, and political institutions, lead to increased FDI flows. We also find a negative association between the Arab Spring unrest and FDI inflows.