DIFFERENT CREDIT FACILITIES POLICIES LINKED EXPORTS, IMPORTS, PUBLIC EXPENDITURE, AND WAGE EXPENDITURE CASE OF PALESTINE

Abstract

Organizations in fragile economies struggle to maintain project continuity, production scheduling, and workforce stability due to recurrent liquidity constraints and external shocks. In Palestine, these challenges are particularly acute, with disruptions to imports, exports, and fiscal flows undermining operational resilience. This study examines the impact of credit facilities on four key economic variables: exports, imports, public expenditure, and wage expenditure, by reframing them not as macroeconomic levers but as managerial tools of project finance, supply chain continuity, and working capital management. Using annual time-series data from the Palestine Monetary Authority for the period 1997–2024, the analysis applies descriptive statistics, correlation tests, and the Mann–Whitney non-parametric test to compare outcomes under low and high credit facility regimes, supported by robustness checks with regression models and sub-period analysis. The findings reveal that higher credit facilities significantly increase exports, imports, public expenditure, and wage stability, thereby rejecting all four null hypotheses. These results extend global evidence on credit and trade to the context of a conflict-affected economy and provide novel insights into the financial–operational nexus of engineering and production management. The study contributes theoretically by reframing credit facilities as instruments of resilience and practically by recommending expanded banking support as a risk management mechanism for firms and governments in volatile environments.