Sustainability of total factor productivity in the countries of the MENA region with an emphasis on ecological footprint

The idea of sustainable growth takes into account resource development, the environment, and the economy. In this century, enormous ecological destruction and the accelerated depletion of natural resources have affected global economic growth, social welfare, and improvements in human health. In some studies, Traditional Total Factor Productivity has used gross domestic product as desirable outputs, and energy, capital, and labor as inputs. gross domestic product as desirable outputs are biased against sustainable growth for the reason that sustainable growth requires not only gross domestic product growth but also human well-being improvements. Hence the human development index has more advantages such as compared to gross domestic product, human development index is rich in meaning and better reflects national development. Ecological Footprint is an index that measures the degree of sustainable development. In an attempt to overcome the limitations of gross domestic product as output and energy as inputs, this paper, takes Ecological Footprint as the index of comprehensive ecological inputs and uses human development index as the output index. It used a new index, Sustainable Total Factor Productivity (STFP), to reflect sustainable growth levels.

This paper combines the Ecological Footprint and human development index with TFP to use a new framework for STFP. This paper uses a DEA-Malmquist index method to calculate STFP changes in MENA countries during the years 1995–2016 and uses a σ-convergence test method to test the STFP convergence trends for them. We define the Sustainable Malmquist index, as a measure of STFP change, SM can be decomposed into sustainable efficiency change and sustainable technical change. If variable returns to scale are assumed, SEC can be further decomposed into sustainable pure efficiency change and sustainable scale change .

Overall, the average annual STFP in MENA countries was 0.98, indicating that from the perspective that Ecological Footprint, K, and L are input factors and human development index is the output, all states pay much less emphasis on sustainable growth except Bahrain and Turkey. Bahrain ranked first, having the highest average Sustainable Malmquist index and then Turkey ranked second. Bahrain's capital increased by 75 %. After decomposing SM into STC, SPEC, and SSEC, it is being seen that the average STC value was 0.996 meaning that sustainable technology change was stagnant. SPEC has an average value of 1.00, showing that sustainable efficiency has improved. On average, the SSEC was 0.98, indicating that industry structure and scale effects may have not improved. Contraries on category of very high and medium HDI states, have an STC higher than that for category high and low HDI states, suggesting that developed states are superior in terms of STC. Category of high HDI, developed nations with human development index more than 0.8, have an average SPEC value of 1.00. The sustainable growth gap between developing states is the greatest. The σ value of Type medium HDI states contain Iran is the smallest and shows minimal volatility. This indicates that the sustainable growth gap between developed states is small and relatively balanced. The σ values of very high and medium HDI category have fluctuated widely. This indicates that growth in developing states and developed states is not stable. Conclusion Different types of nations should choose different paths to achieve positive sustainable growth. The STFPs of the MENA nations present different features according to different economic levels and environmental protection levels, so formulating distinguished policies of sustainable growth is a necessity. Technical progress should be promoted to achieve sustainable growth. Promoting sustainable technology plays a crucial role in sustainable growth. Policymakers should encourage to research and develop sustainable technologies and raise entrepreneur awareness of eco-environmental protection.