Effectiveness of Monetary Policy Instruments on Economic Growth in Jordan Using Vector Error Correction Model

Abstract

The global financial crisis emphasized the important role of the prudent monetary policy in supporting economic growth through maintaining price stability. The monetary policy operational framework that was designed in 2008 was updated to include more instruments for managing monetary policy learning from the crisis lessons. Several studies analyzed various dimensions related to economic growth in Jordan such as Abdul-Khaliq, Soufan, and Abu Shihab (2013) and Assaf (2014), there were no studies that investigated the effect of monetary policy on economic growth in Jordan, at least recently, however. The study aims at measuring the effect of monetary policy instruments on the performance of Jordanian economy. Using quarterly data covering the period (2005-2015), an econometric model was examined using Vector Error Correction Model to assess the impact of monetary policy instruments on economic growth. The foremost advantage of VECM is that it has a nice interpretation of long-term and short-term equations. The results showed the existence of positive long-term and short-term effects of monetary policy instruments on the growth of real GDP. The model included three monetary policy instruments besides money supply. They are required reserve ratio, rediscount rate and overnight interbank loan rates as independent variables, and the real GDP growth as a dependent variable. The stationarity of the model time series was addressed. In addition, the stability of the model was tested using stability diagnostics tools. The results showed also an existence of inverse relationship between rediscount rate and economic growth in Jordan over both long and short terms.