Several observations can be made about the economic growth rate in Jordan and the unemployment rate. Years of enviably high growth have not lead to decreasing unemployment especially among the population’s largest segment, the youth.

The term corporate social responsibility is being thrown around more and more in Jordan although the concept itself is little practised. It is also little known and often mistaken for charity or philanthropy, which is probably the main reason it is stifled in Jordan. CSR, which

What is the impact of censorship and why do absolutist regimes prohibit the printing of material they find threatening? I share a story here from the book “Why Nations Fail” by James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu.

Michael Porter, the Harvard strategy professor, often asserted in his many writings that it is common to see company owners in developing countries enriching themselves by siphoning off profits and dividends, and investing in non-core-business activities, which limits the growth

Enhancing economic competitiveness is the best and safest politically, and the only way to do all the following simultaneously: reduce the budget deficit and national debt, grow the economy, increase average wages, and reduce unemployment and poverty rates. Doing it is simple an

The challenges and opportunities faced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Jordan are well known by now. Solutions, simple and complex, are needed.

Governments should not throw numbers they cannot justify. Like the Ministry of Finance’s handling of the budget, the Ministry of Education seems to be having trouble with its arithmetic. In a very objective article, Jawad Abbassi determined in no uncertain terms that th

In hopes that economic managers would care to focus on growth and later, possibly, development, this article spells out “how” that could be done. From the outset, many economic decisions, even though agreed with the IMF, need to be halted or reversed. Let’s

A discussion of the 2014 budget by three prominent analysts at the Economic Policy Development Forum in Amman last week shed light not on the positive side of things but also on what is missing in the budget. One pundit after another (one a former minister of finance) highl