We examine the role of spatial spillovers in economic growth for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We explicitly model spatial interactions that may arise from geography, bilateral trade, or institutional similarities, and ask how much they are likely to matter for growth externalities and spillover effects. We find that the economic growth of a MENA country is positively affected by the economic growth of countries that are geographically close and that have similar institutional characteristics. The spillover effects of growth are due to economic activities in countries that trade primarily in oil, which accounts for the gap in spillover effects due to institutional similarity between resource-rich and resource-poor countries in the MENA region. However, trade linkages matter less. Where they do have an effect, it is through the local range effects of a spatially lagged explanatory variable capturing the effects of the trade balance on growth.

中文翻译：

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中东和北非地区的增长溢出效应：地理、制度还是贸易？

我们研究了空间溢出效应在中东和北非 (MENA) 地区经济增长中的作用。我们明确地模拟了可能由地理、双边贸易或制度相似性引起的空间相互作用，并询问它们对增长外部性和溢出效应的影响有多大。我们发现 MENA 国家的经济增长受到地理上相近且具有相似制度特征的国家的经济增长的积极影响。增长的溢出效应是由于主要从事石油贸易的国家的经济活动造成的，这解释了由于中东和北非地区资源丰富和资源贫乏国家之间的制度相似性导致溢出效应的差距。然而，贸易联系不那么重要。他们确实有影响的地方，