ICT and Information Asymmetry New Evidence of the Financial System in Selected MENA countries

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the role of ICT in reducing the effect of information asymmetry on the financial development. For this purpose, data associated with the selected countries of MENA during the years 2004-2015 were extracted from the official sources and then the research model was evaluated in the short- and long-term using the dynamic generalized method of moments and FMOLS methods, respectively. The results show that, first, in the short and long terms, the greater the information asymmetry, the lower the financial development. Second, among the ICT indicators, only mobile internet can improve the financial system in the countries under study in the short term through information symmetry. Fixed telephone and fixed broadband internet cannot mitigate the negative effect of information asymmetry on short-term and long-term financial development in the countries under study.