Exploring Lebanon's Growth Prospects

Berthé ; lemy, Jean-Claude ; Dessus, Sé ; bastien ; Nahas, Charbel

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGGREGATE DEMAND;    AGRICULTURE;    BANKING REGULATIONS;    BANKING SECTOR;    BANKRUPTCIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4332
RP-ID  :  WPS4332

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper attempts to identifyLebanon's greatest constraints to economic growth,following a growth diagnosis approach. It concludes thatfiscal imbalances and barriers to entry are most binding onlong-term growth. Macroeconomic imbalances and relatedperceived risks affect the nature of investment decisions inLebanon, in favor of liquid instruments rather thanlonger-term productive investments. Further, many barriersto entry discourage agents from investing in a number ofmarkets: legal impediments to competition, corruption, and aset of fiscal incentives favoring the allocation ofresources to non-tradable sectors, where potential demandand investment opportunities are scarcer. In turn, using asteady-state computable general equilibrium model, the paperassesses the long-term growth impact of a selected set ofpolicy reforms envisaged to lift such constraints. Resultssuggest that 1 to 2 percentage points of additional GDPgrowth per year could be gained through public expenditurereform, greater domestic competition, and tax harmonization.