아프리카ㆍ중동

Since the end of 1980s, Jordan has passed several phases of economic reform aimed at stabilizing the Jordanian economy and managing the transition from a state-controlled economic model to a market-led one. This study tries to assess the outcomes of economic reform. To do it, this paper analyzes the relationship between economic growth and several macroeconomic variables which are considered to be affected by the economic reform. The empirical analysis is carried out using the data for GDP, consumption expenditure,investment, government expenditure, export, FDI, official aid and workers’remittance. Cointegration analysis and VECM estimation find that in Jordan only overseas inflows of fund have led GDP, whereas domestic variables haven’t caused significant changes of GDP. This means that economic reform of Jordan has succeeded only in overseas sectors. The reform process in Jordan has been so slow, incomprehensive, and uncoordinated that it couldn’t find long-lasting solutions to major social and economic challenges of Jordan, such as poverty, unemployment, public debt, and high dependency on foreign aid. The critical point to driving the reform agenda forward is to deal with fundamental factors that determine their outcomes. The major reason for the failure to deal with key social and economic difficulties lies in the convergence of political and governance issues that undermine the reform efforts. Jordan needs to try to improve the governance framework, which means the progress of public sector performance, public sector accountability, and institutional capacity building. Jordan also has to make progress in political reform, which means enhancement of democracy in political and social life of the population.