Determinants of economic development amidst political instability: Yemen's case

Many countries in the Middle East region lay on abundance of natural resources, yet, they never had the chance to use them effectively, and people of these countries suffer from different crises. However, some of those countries had been suffering from the lack of economic resources, but that was not the only reason to for millions of people to remain in severe need. Political corruption, ignorance, and not to mention the heinous exploitation by the superpower countries and their collusion with the corrupt governments in the Middle East in exchange for running their own interests regardless of the circumstances of the peoples of these countries, all that play an essential role in the current situation. This research aimed to study the theoretical and practical justifications for political instability, oil rent, and foreign direct investments in post-war Yemen rebuilding with regard to economic growth. Political instability, oil rent, and foreign direct investment (FDI) served as the study's explanatory variables; GDP growth (annual; %) served as the study's response variable, and as a result, its influence on the reconstruction of Yemen following the conflict. The Johansen cointegration test was used in the study to determine whether there was cointegration among the variables. The short-run and long-run coefficients were also estimated using the Vector autoregression (VAR) estimation technique, and their individual effects on economic growth in Yemen were evaluated for significance. FDI, oil rent, and political instability were found to have significant long-term effects on economic growth, but short-term effects were neutral. The Granger Causality test was applied to look for any causative connections between the variables, and the results revealed that there were unidirectional connections between FDI, pol-ins, oil rent, and economic growth.