世界银行-衡量立法可预测性：约旦王国的案例及其对中东和北非地区的影响（英）

Policy Research Working Paper10864Measuring Legislative PredictabilityThe Case of the Kingdom of Jordan and Implications for the MENA RegionMihály FazekasDominik BrennerPeter LadegaardGovernance Global Practice August 2024 Public Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedPublic Disclosure AuthorizedProduced by the Research Support TeamAbstractThe Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Policy Research Working Paper 10864Laws and regulations represent a central tool for govern-ments to achieve policy objectives, and they also represent a fundamental condition for making desirable individual and business decisions. While laws and regulations regularly have to be adapted to changing circumstances, frequent and sudden modifications indicate legislative unpredictability and are expected to impose considerable costs on citizens and businesses. Legislative predictability is assumed to be the consequence of high-quality laws, and existing evidence shows that regulatory management systems indeed impact legislative predictability. This paper proposes and imple-ments an innovative legislative big data analytics approach to measuring legislative predictability in the Kingdom of Jordan and selected global comparator countries. It also maps out the feasibility of such an approach for the wider Middle East and North Africa region. Legislative data gath-ered from official government sources point to the high frequency of modifications in Jordan compared to a wide range of countries where data are available Around 10 to 15 percent of the original laws have been modified within 24 months of enactment over the past 20 years. In addition to prevalent modifications of new laws, even older laws face a comparatively high risk of modification in Jordan. Additional data collection following the template outlined in this paper could deliver a comparative data set, enabling a better understanding of the drivers and trends of legisla-tive predictability and hence better evidence-based policies.This paper is a product of the Governance Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The aut