Financial sector development, economic growth and demography in MENA region.

Summary This thesis studies the impact of the financial markets on economic growth for MENA region. The first chapter presents a general overview of the region, with a focus on economic, demographic and financial market outlook of the region. In the second chapter an overlapping generation model is presented, that links economic development, financial markets and demographic shift. The model is simulated for three countries in the region with different speeds in demographic shift. The results show that a more efficient financial sector leads to better economic performance and higher employment rates, furthermore, youth are the primary beneficiaries of the reform in the financial sector. The third chapter tests empirically the link between the financial sector and the real sector in 15 MENA countries and finds a negative impact of financial sector development on growth. These results underline the expansion of an inefficient financial sector in the region, and the urgent need to focus on policies that target the efficiency of the sector and not solely its size. A comprehensive composite index for the financial sector development is developed in the fourth chapter. This index is based on three pillars that are, macroeconomic environment, financial institutions and financial markets. The index takes into account the specificities of MENA countries and allows us to rank the countries in the region according to their performance in the financial sector.