The Impact of Good Governance and E-Government on Multidimensional Poverty in Selected Middle Eastern Countries: Evidence from a Quantile Panel Approach

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

maryam mokhtari ¹

Farzane Haji Hassani ²

Mohammad Taher Ahmadi Shadmehri ³

¹ PhD student at Azad University

² Assistant Professor, Department of Economics

³ Professor of Economics

https://doi.org/10.22067/erd.2026.99618.1375

Abstract

Poverty is a key feature of unsustainable socio-economic development that negatively impacts the lives and well-being of individuals in society. Therefore, poverty reduction is a fundamental goal of many countries. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to examine the impact of effective governance and e-government on multidimensional poverty in a selection of Middle Eastern countries during the years 2003 to 2023. Quantile panel regression was used to estimate the coefficients in this study. The results of the model estimation showed that there is a negative and significant relationship between the good governance index and multidimensional poverty in all quantiles. In addition, the results indicate that there is a negative and significant relationship between e-government and the multidimensional poverty index in the upper quantiles. The results of further analysis showed that the five dimensions of voice and accountability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption either had a reducing effect on poverty in all quantiles or showed a negative and significant effect in the middle and high poverty quantiles. Only the dimension of political stability and the absence of violence have had a different pattern. This set of results showed that in Middle Eastern countries, institutional and managerial dimensions of governance play a more important role in reducing multidimensional poverty than the purely political dimension of stability, and the effect of these dimensions is much stronger in countries with higher levels of poverty, a finding that indicates the existence of significant heterogeneity in the relationship between good governance and multidimensional poverty and is considered one of the important achievements of the quantile panel approach.

Keywords

good governance

e-government

multidimensional poverty

Middle East

quantile panel

Subjects

• economic development

---