Is refugee influx a cause of economic vulnerability: an empirical study of Jordan (1990-2018)

Jordan received thousands of refugees over the last 30 years. Engulfed by regional turbulence, holding limited resources and reliant on foreign aid, Jordan stands vulnerable towards external shocks. Given such volatility, this study will examine how refugees affect the real per capita income, per capita government spending and unemployment. This will be done using vector autoregression (VAR) model. The data used accounts for a time series annual data for the period of 1990-2018, obtained from Computer and Enterprise Investigations Conference (CEIC) census and Jordan's Department of Statistics. The study found that there is no causality between refugee influx and the unemployment rate, per capita income and per capita government spending. These results indicate that refugee intake may not be a crippling element on Jordan as capital inflow from donors, humanitarian agencies and the assistance in cash and kind may compensate Jordan's public. Further, refugees usually work in informal sectors in which Jordanians are reluctant to accept.