Exploring Lebanon's Growth Prospects

Accessible en ligne :http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSitePK=469382&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&entityID=000158349_20070827151759World Bank, Policy Resarch Paper n°4332This paper attempts to identify Lebanon's greatest constraints to economic growth, following a growth diagnosis approach. It concludes that fiscal imbalances and barriers to entry are most binding on long-term growth. Macroeconomic imbalances and related perceived risks affect the nature of investment decisions in Lebanon, in favor of liquid instruments rather than longer-term productive investments. Further, many barriers to entry discourage agents from investing in a number of markets: legal impediments to competition, corruption, and a set of fiscal incentives favoring the allocation of resources to non-tradable sectors, where potential demand and investment opportunities are scarcer. In turn, using a steady-state computable general equilibrium model, the paper assesses the long-term growth impact of a selected set of policy reforms envisaged to lift such constraints. Results suggest that 1 to 2 percentage points of additional GDP growth per year could be gained through public expenditure reform, greater domestic competition, and tax harmonization