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Villasmil, Ricardo

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Villasmil, Ricardo

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    What Will It Take for Jordan to Grow?
    (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2022-03) O'Brien, Timothy; Bui, Ngoc Thao Nguyen; Frasheri, Ermal; Garcia, Fernando; Protzer, Eric; Villasmil, Ricardo; Hausmann, Ricardo
    This report aims to answer the critical but difficult question: "What will it take for Jordan to grow?" Though Jordan has numerous active growth and reform strategies in place, they do not clearly answer this fundamental question. The Jordanian economy has experienced more than a decade of slow growth. Per capita income today is lower than it was prior to the Global Financial Crisis as Jordan has experienced a refugee-driven population increase. Jordan’s comparative advantages have narrowed over time as external shocks and responses to these shocks have changed the productive structure of Jordan’s economy. This was a problem well before the country faced the COVID-19 pandemic. The Jordanian economy has lost productivity, market access, and, critically, the ability to afford high levels of imports as a share of GDP. Significant efforts toward fiscal consolidation have further constrained aggregate demand, which has slowed non-tradable activity and the ability of the economy to create jobs. Labor market outcomes have worsened over time and are especially bad for women and youth. Looking ahead, this report identifies clear and significant opportunities for Jordan to strengthen new engines of export growth that would enable better overall job creation and resilience, even amidst the continued unpredictability of the pandemic. This report argues that there is need for a paradigm shift in Jordan’s growth strategy to focus more direct attention and resources on activating “agents of change” to accelerate the emergence of key growth opportunities, and that there are novel roles that donor countries can play in support of this.
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    Publication
    Jordan: The Elements of a Growth Strategy
    (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2019-04) Hausmann, Ricardo; O'Brien, Tim; Santos, Miguel Angel; Grisanti, Ana; Kasoolu, Semiray; Taniparti, Nikita; Tapia Rodriguez, Jorge Andres; Villasmil, Ricardo
    In the decade 1999-2009, Jordan experienced an impressive growth acceleration, tripling its exports and increasing income per capita by 38%. Since then, a number of external shocks that include the Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009), the Arab Spring (2011), the Syrian Civil War (2011), and the emergence of the Islamic State (2014) have affected Jordan in significant ways and thrown its economy out of balance. Jordan’s debt-to-GDP ratio has ballooned from 55% (2009) to 94% (2018). The economy has continued to grow amidst massive fiscal adjustment and balance of payments constraints, but the large increase in population – by 50% between 2008 and 2017 – driven by massive waves of refugees has resulted in a 12% cumulative loss in income per capita (2010-2017). Moving forward, debt sustainability will require not only continued fiscal consolidation but also faster growth and international support to keep interest payments on the debt contained. We have developed an innovative framework to align Jordan’s growth strategy with its changing factor endowments. The framework incorporates service industries into an Economic Complexity analysis, utilizing the Dun and Bradstreet database, together with an evaluation of the evolution of Jordan’s comparative advantages over time. Combining several tools to identify critical constraints faced by sectors with the greatest potential, we have produced a roadmap with key elements of a strategy for Jordan to return to faster, more sustainable and more inclusive growth that is consistent with its emerging comparative advantages.
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    Publication
    A Growth Perspective on Wyoming
    (Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2023-03) Bùi, Thảo-Nguyên; Freeman, Timothy; Kaddah, Farah; Lamby, Lucas; Li, Yang; O’Brien, Tim; Protzer, Eric; Rueda Sanz, Alejandro; Villasmil, Ricardo; Hausmann, Ricardo
    This report sets out to understand if the economy of the State of Wyoming is positioned to grow into the future. To do this, the report begins by investigating the past. To know where the state economy could be headed, and how that direction may be improved, it is critical to understand how the state developed the economic structure and drivers that it has today. Thus, Wyoming’s economic trajectory is explored over the long, medium, and short term. From this investigation, we find that Wyoming faces an overall growth problem, but we also find a high degree of variation in economic engines and growth prospects across the state. The problem that this report identifies is that the composition of economic activities is not positioned to sustain a high quality of life across all parts of the state. “Across all parts of the state” is an essential part of the problem statement for Wyoming. While some local and regional economies in the state are growing and bumping up against identifiable constraints, other local and regional economies are experiencing sustained contractions and will require new sources of growth in order to retain (or expand) population and high quality of life. Since economic dynamics vary significantly across the state, analysis is conducted in as much geographic detail as possible. By combining historical and geographic dimensions of growth, this report aims to inform pathways for sustained and inclusive prosperity across the of Wyoming.