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The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on Egyptian stock market returns and volatility between July 2018 and June 2021.

This study utilizes a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model to examine the impact of COVID-19 on two basic stock market indices (EGX30 and EGX100). In addition, the heteroskedasticity corrected model (HCM) was employed to differentiate between the effects of each subsequent wave of the pandemic.

The results of the GARCH model revealed that all COVID-19 variables have a significant impact on the daily returns of EGX100, but an insignificant impact on that of EGX30. The mortality rate and transmission speed increased the market volatility of EGX30 daily returns. The results of the HCM confirmed that the Egyptian stock market reacted more nervously to the first wave than to the second, while the impact was not detected in the third wave.

This study provides useful insights to investors and policymakers in handling the negative influence of unanticipated events. To retain economic stability, the Egyptian government can impose fiscal stimuli and consider policies to combat the impact of the pandemic.

This study is one of the first attempts to differentiate between the effects of subsequent waves of the pandemic on the stock market in Egypt, one of the largest economies in Africa.

This research seeks to empirically examine the impact of government expenditure on the unemployment rate in Egypt during the period of 1980–2017. In addition, it examines whether the distinction between discretionary and nondiscretionary items of government expenditure have a different effect on unemployment.

The study employs the Johansen cointegration test to ensure the long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables, then the vector error correction model (VECM) to explore the dynamic short and long-run effects.

The empirical results of this research reveal that increasing government expenditure causes an increase in the unemployment rate in the long-run. Both discretionary expenditures and nondiscretionary expenditures increase the growth of unemployment by approximately the same coefficient. The worsening impact of discretionary expenditures on unemployment is highly attributed to the compensation of employees and the government subsidies. Investment expenditure has an insignificant effect because of its minor percentage in government expenses.

Redirecting the unnecessary expenditures toward labor-intensive public investments is recommended, in addition to reducing domestic and foreign debts. The government has to work hard to increase the economic growth rate, as it has a vital role in reducing unemployment.

This study is one of the first attempts to analyze the effect of government expenditure on the unemployment rate in Egypt. Moreover, this research distinguishes between the effects related to discretionary and nondiscretionary items of government expenditure.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the effects of both foreign direct investment (FDI) and external debt on economic growth and employment in Egypt over the 1985–2014 period.

The empirical analysis includes three stages: an aggregate time series analysis, a panel model that includes six economic sectors and a set of single-sector models. The “autoregressive distributed lag” approach is utilized either in the time series or in the panel models.

The empirical results of this research reveal that foreign investment exerts a weak positive effect on economic growth and employment in Egypt. External debt exerts an insignificant effect on economic growth and employment in the aggregate model. The sectoral analysis reveals that the effect varies greatly between sectors; the effect of FDI on output is positive in the financial, tourism and other service sectors, while it is insignificant in the agricultural, construction and manufacturing sectors.

It is important not to depend on external debt as an easy way to obtain capital. Greater efforts should be exerted to increase the absorptive capacity of the Egyptian economy so as to benefit from the positive spillover effect of foreign investment as much as possible.

With respect to Egypt, very limited studies have focussed on the role of external debt on growth and that of FDI and external debt on the employment level. There is no general agreement concerning the effect of FDI on economic growth. Therefore, this research explores the effect of FDI and external debt on the Egyptian economy utilizing both aggregate and sectoral data.