Lebanon : Promoting Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity / Eric Le Borgne and Thomas J. Jacobs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Le Borgne, Eric, author.

Jacobs, Thomas J., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Lebanon--Economic conditions.

Lebanon.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 141 pages) : color illustrations

Other Title:

Lebanon

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : World Bank, 2016.

Summary:

Over the past decades, the Lebanese economy has grown at a moderate but low quality pace due to large, frequent and mostly 'political' shocks. Real GDP grew on average by 4.4 percent from 1992 to 2014 but this performance masks sharp sudden growth stops, to which the economy has been resilient. With low growth quality, Lebanon has struggled to reduce widespread poverty and to generate inclusive growth as job creation has been weak. The World Bank's Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) posits that, at the root of Lebanon's failure to generate inclusive growth and jobs, are the presence of two mutually reinforcing and pervasive (overarching) constraints. These are Elite capture hidden behind the veil of confessionalism / confessional governance, and Conflict and violence (partly stemming from the broader dynamics of the Middle East conflict). These overarching constraints impose a heavy economic burden, with the cost of confessional governance estimated at 9 percent of GDP annually. Similarly, the cost of the conflict and violence is large and recurrent (e.g., the 1975-1990 civil war halved GDP, while the Syrian conflict is estimated to have resulted in USD7.5 billion in foregone output through 2014). The SCD argues that other (more traditional) constraints are nested within the two overarching constraints. Nested constraints include macroeconomic instability, weak business environment, insufficient investment in infrastructure (especially in lagging regions), skills mismatch with labor market needs, and weak institutions and regulatory framework. Absent the destabilizing impact of the overarching constraints, these nested constraints would be significantly less binding than they currently are. While Lebanon's twin overarching constraints are deep-rooted, the country can make substantial development progress by adopting strategies to mitigate these constraints. These include reforms aimed at lessening the overarching constraints themselves, or at reducing the nested constraints through reforms that are incentive-compatible with the existing overarching constraints.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Publisher Number:

10.1596/K8478