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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.

Migrants’ remittances to Egypt have increased considerably in both size and importance over the past 40 years. This increase has made Egypt one of the top remittance recipients in the world and the leading recipient country in the Middle East. As migrant remittances are one of Egypt's main sources of foreign capital, this study aims to identify the impact of these remittances on economic growth.

The study collects annual data on migrant remittances sent to Egypt during the period 1980–2017. The study uses the Augmented Dickey–Fuller test and Johnsen's Co-integration test to establish long-run relationships between variables. Then, a vector error correction model (VECM) is used to combine long-run and short-run dynamics, and a Granger causality test is performed. Finally, diagnostic tests of the VECM are conducted.

Results reveal that migrants’ remittances to Egypt are countercyclical in the sense that they have a long-term negative impact on economic growth. These results are determined by the Granger causality between migrants' remittances, inflation rate and imports.

The study can help policymakers to develop appropriate policies to turn migrants' remittances into a reliable source of capital that could result in a stable economic growth.

Although various empirical studies have examined the growth effect of remittances, most of them are based on cross-country data. This study contributes to the field by attempting to close a gap in the literature by empirically analyzing the impact of remittances on a single country over a long period.

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.