Women empowerment and Economic Growth: (A spatial econometric analysis: Perspectives from the GCC)

The empowerment of women stimulates economic development if women can flourish and freely develop their full capabilities as talented and efficient workers, mothers, caregivers, and often more productive managers of households than men in both developed and developing countries. To test this important aspect, the current study analyzes the nexus between women empowerment and economic growth. Furthermore, the study explores whether the effect women empowerment differs in different economies characterized by income levels. Economic development in many countries often depends on the links with neighboring and other countries in the form of foreign direct investment and international trade. This interdependence among countries is known as spatial dependence in the literature which needs to control for the appropriate analysis. Therefore, this study also employs the spatial econometric tools to correctly identify the effect.