This study examines the impact of the triptych economic freedom-financial development-FDI on economic growth in 12 MENA countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen) over the period 1995-2012, by using OLS, panel fixed effects (FE), panel random effects (RE) and generalized method of moments (GMM). The main findings indicate that economic freedom contributes positively and significantly to economic growth, because greater economic freedom fosters economic growth by inducing competition and steering resources to the most efficient use. Furthermore, financial development indicators exert a positive and significant impact on the growth of selected MENA economies, thus, it can be said that the financial development play a preponderant role in enhancing the MENA region's growth prospects by encouraging savings and investments, and allowing the efficient allocation of resources, it is also accountable for absorbing FDI benefits. As well as, the results show the positive growth effect of FDI. Based on these findings, it could be concluded that policy actions should be directed towards strengthening economic institutions, promoting access to finance and enhancing competition through the removal of stringent entry barriers and improvement of credit information. Further, MENA countries can improve their growth performance by opening their doors more widely to FDI inflows and enacting favorable investment policies. Additionally, policy makers in the MENA region should create the enabling environment conducive to financial development and implement far-reaching reforms in the financial area along with embarking on deeper and broader institutional reforms.

This study investigates the impact of corruption on economic growth in Algeria over the period 1995-2011 by using the Heritage Foundation's freedom from corruption index and the World Bank's control of corruption indicator. The Johansen cointegration test has been applied in order to investigate the existence of long-run relationships among the tested variables. As well as, the vector error correction model (VECM) has been employed to analyze the long-run and short- run dynamic relationships among the various time series. The initial findings indicate that both 'freedom from corruption' and 'control of corruption' have long run positive effects on enhancing economic growth in Algeria. It is also revealed that the human capital has an insignificant positive impact on economic growth in the long term. Moreover, VECM analysis suggests that all explanatory variables have positive and insignificant short-run effects on promoting economic growth except the 'control of corruption' indicator. These results support the view that corruption sands the wheels of economic growth. Thus, the Algerian government should root out this scourge by finding the relevant solutions that must be supported with effective weapons such as transparency and tougher accountability standards.