Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of tax structures on economic growth in Jordan over the period 1980-2015 using error correction techniques. It provides empirical evidence that the tax structure itself, comprising direct taxes, indirect taxes and total tax revenues, is an insufficient indicator for policymakers, whereas when each tax was included separately in the model, it was found that income tax, corporate taxes and personal taxes influenced per capita income growth negatively and that all of them were distortionary taxes. They greatly reduced both short and long-term per capita growth, while tariffs and consumption taxes were found to influence per capita income growth positively. The study also shows that relying heavily on increasing total taxes without taking into consideration the tax structure of the country would lead to a reduction in per capita income, in contrast to other tax structures that showed positive and neutral effects on per capita income. Tax reform and shifting from income taxes toward consumption taxes and tariffs would therefore enhance the well-being of individuals and increase their share of output.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses an analytical approach in the framework of an error correction model. This approach allows us to overcome many problems in time series data such as non-stationary, serial correlation and endogeneity of variables, which have been ignored in many published studies dealing with time series data.Findings: The analysis shows that consumption and tariffs have a positive effect on per capita gross domestic product growth, whereas income taxes negatively influenced this growth measure. This implies that attention must be paid to a preference for consumption and tariffs to provide sustained growth. The authors recommend that the government objective should shift from raising revenues to achieving social justice and efficiency.Research limitations/implications: There are two main limitations inherent this study. The first limitation in regard to the missing data in the series for labor force and average years of schooling, interpolation method used to overcome this shortage. While the second limitation is about the importance of the tax structure itself and its direct impact on such patterns of investment which have been considered but within narrow limits.Practical implications: The relationship between taxes and economic growth is a controversial aspect of economics, because of its high impact on the decisions made by individuals and institutions, along with its direct influence on the economy as a whole. The authors recommend that the Jordanian government’s objective should shift from raising revenues to achieving social justice and efficiency. Furthermore, Jordan’s weak tax performance and ineffective tax structure indicate the importance for policymakers of focusing more closely on enhancing future per capita growth, which can be done by shifting from income tax toward consumption and trade taxes. On another level, policymakers can reform the tax structure in favor of long-run growth by addressing the importance of consumption taxes and trade taxes in their policies, rather than increasing tax rates.Social implications: The character of growth is more important than its magnitude. Economic growth should be reflected in the alleviation of poverty reduced inequality and ultimately better living standards. Additionally the authors believe that sustained economic growth can be achieved only if it is broadly based and inclusive. This implies the need to generate jobs for the growing workforce and the adoption of policies to protect and cater for the vulnerable segments of the population. Otherwise economic policy will fail to achieve its objectives.Originality/value: This study assists policymakers in understanding the relationship between the various types of taxes and economic growth. In particular, the relation between the unique tax structure and growth drivers. This is the first study to analyze tax structure and economic growth in Jordan.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of how different aspects of the national institutional environment may influence the extent of innovative entrepreneurial activities across countries. Several institutional and conductive factors affecting a country’s capacity to support innovative entrepreneurship are explored.Design/methodology/approach: Institutional theory is used to examine the national regulatory, normative, cognitive and conducive aspects that measure a country’s ability to support innovative entrepreneurship. A cross-national institutional profile is constructed to validate an entrepreneurial innovation model. The impacts of country-level national institutions on innovative entrepreneurial activity as measured by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data are assessed through structural equation modeling.Findings: Knowledge about the influence of specific institutional aspects on innovative entrepreneurship, and hence of institutional structures within and across countries, is enhanced. For new innovative enterprises, conductive and regulatory aspects seem to matter most. All conductive factors have a significant and positive impact on entrepreneurial activity rates.Research limitations/implications: Results could support policy makers and practitioners in evaluating government policies’ effects on innovative entrepreneurship. Interventions should target both individual attributes and context. Future research could include longitudinal designs to measure the direction of causality.Practical implications: Aspects such as regulatory institutions, and conductive factors such as information communication technology use and technology adoption, are important for innovation entrepreneurship development.Originality/value: The literature on institutional theory and innovative entrepreneurship is highly limited. This study complements growing interest in empirical analysis of the effects of national institutions on innovative entrepreneurial activities and substantiates previous empirical work.

This study empirically investigated the drivers of port competitiveness among low-, upper-, and high-income countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. It explored the effects of country-level competitiveness, logistic performance, and ease of doing business on port competitiveness for 17 countries from the region using a 14-item scale and covering the years 2010 to 2022. Port competitiveness indicators were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis to determine the research constructs’ validity. Structural path analysis was deployed to verify hypotheses concerning effects between conceptualized variables. The findings demonstrate that in high-income countries, an increase in country competitiveness notably enhances port sustainability and competitiveness. Conversely, in low-income countries, higher country competitiveness appears to diminish port competitiveness. For countries with average income, the association is relatively neutral, exhibiting a slight positive trend. This study explains the specific drivers and interactions that improve port sustainability and competitiveness as countries move from low- to high-income levels of development.

This study examines the impact of trade openness, poverty, and inequality on inclusive growth in developing economies, taking Jordan as an example. Using panel data from 1990 to 2015, it examines the relationship between trade openness policies, growth rates, poverty, and income inequality in various provinces of Jordan. The empirical analysis assesses whether trade openness policies and reforms have enhanced income equality, and reduced poverty across provinces. Further, within the framework of inclusive growth, the study explores how per capita income growth has changed after trade openness reform. Different econometric techniques, such as the generalized method of moments, fully modified ordinary least square, and dynamic ordinary least square, are employed to assess the relationship between trade openness, poverty, inequality, and inclusive growth. To determine the univariate properties of the series under investigation, two panel unit root tests, based on Levin, Lin and Chu (2002) and Hadri (2000), are implemented. Both aggregate and provincial level panel data are used. Furthermore, two panel cointegration tests are employed—Kao (1999) and Pedroni's (1999) residual cointegration-based tests. The empirical results show that trade openness has a positive and significant effect on inclusive growth, though it is substantially weakened by poverty and income inequality at the national and provincial levels. This inequality is the likely cause for the small contribution of trade openness to inclusive growth. The effect of trade on inclusive growth is significantly positive for all provinces, but the contribution of trade openness varies according to local and provincial factors. Consequently, this study recommends better policies for promoting sustainable and inclusive growth—policies that amend inequality and reduce poverty are more likely to enforce the positive effect of trade openness on inclusive growth. Finally, the study contributes to existing literature, and assists local and international policymakers in understanding the effect of trade openness on inclusive growth at the country and provincial levels. To the best of our knowledge, this is possibly the first attempt to analyze inclusive growth in Jordan.

Purpose: Although recent research acknowledges the importance of reducing the inefficient activities from road transportation, there is still a missing link in literature of how transportation extended wastes impact road haulers efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between waste reduction practices (WRP) and fleet operational efficiency (FOE) in road hauler firms.Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical model was developed to assess this relationship. The authors test the model with a sample from logistics companies providing road haulage services in the Middle East, providing a contribution to extant literature from a different setting.Findings: Results suggest that WRP have a positive and significant impact on FOE. A valuable scale for the measurement of operational efficiency was developed and validated, representing an index toward the most efficient organization.Practical implications: The findings of this study serves as a tool for shippers to benchmark the efficiency levels of their motor carrier service providers against each other, considering that segmentation is a relevant issue to understand the choice in favor of a given provider to the detriment of another. Furthermore, road haulers can use the efficiency measurements as a basis for establishing future action plans to adopt waste reduction practices.Originality/value: The research deals with a newly emerging stream of research on linking waste practices to road transport. The authors contribute to this developing body of research through filling a gap in the link between waste and road transport operational performance. The research is also different from recent literature in that the authors provide insights from a larger population, unlike other similar studies who used VSM and studied only a particular case. Thus, the work is important to generalize the findings, especially that the authors provide a perspective from a non-western perspective.