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Regional development in Saudi Arabia: The government's role
Abstract
Research investigating the economies of the Saudi Arabian regions (the five planning regions) has substantially neglected the government role in developing these regions. Such neglect can be traced to the paucity of data pertaining to regional government spending and to conventional regional indicators (e.g., GRP or regional income). This study approximates the data necessary to investigate the government role in promoting regional development in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabian annual budgets were allocated, by program, among the five regions, using appropriate allocators. Private employment data were used as proxies for measuring regional development. The final purpose of this study is to evaluate the regional distribution of the Saudi national budget and its regional impact over the past two decades. To accomplish this end the study analyzed: (1) the type of governmental objective (i.e., an equity, equality, or efficiency goal) in regionally distributing national funds during the 1974-82 and 1985-90 periods; and (2) the importance of government expenditures in promoting regional development. Approaches employed include time-series regression analyses and "simple percentage shares." The first approach correlates private employment with public funds at national and regional levels. The second approach entailed a comparison of regional shares of government funds with both regional population and regional private employment shares during the 1974-82 and 1985-90 periods. Results of the regression analyses suggest that public spending is the key factor in fostering both national and regional development. The results of the comparative approach indicate that the regional distribution of Saudi national funds has been development-oriented over the past two decades; this was especially true during the 1985-90 period. As a result of this pattern, regional disparity declined considerably in 1974-82 and slightly in 1985-90. Private employment responded in differential manner to regional budgets. Except for the natural resource budget, all program budgets were progressive in the sense that they exhibited tendencies toward reducing interregional inequality. Progressivity decreased for infrastructure and producing sectors budgets and increased for human resources and social budgets between the 1974-82 and 1985-90 periods.
Subject Area
Economics|Urban planning|Area planning & development|Public administration
Recommended Citation
Bin-Obaid, Ahmad Sulaiman, "Regional development in Saudi Arabia: The government's role" (1992). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9314391.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9314391