IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2008-017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lebanon—Weathering the Perfect Storms

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Axel Schimmelpfennig
  • Mr. E. H. Gardner

Abstract

This paper reviews Lebanon's ability to manage financial pressures following severe shocks despite its large public debt overhang and significant external vulnerabilities. Based on interviews with market participants in Beirut and London, the paper concludes that Lebanon's ability to weather what appear to be "perfect storms" derives from three characteristics: a perceived implicit guarantee from donors; Lebanon's track record of having never defaulted on external debt or deposits; and the unique market structure for Lebanese debt which is dominated by local banks and "dedicated" investors and depositors.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Axel Schimmelpfennig & Mr. E. H. Gardner, 2008. "Lebanon—Weathering the Perfect Storms," IMF Working Papers 2008/017, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=21606
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003. "Debt Intolerance," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 1-74.
    2. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Ostry, Jonathan D., 2008. "International evidence on fiscal solvency: Is fiscal policy "responsible"?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1081-1093, September.
    3. repec:rus:hseeco:123922 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Steven B. Kamin, 2004. "Identifying the Role of Moral Hazard in International Financial Markets," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 25-59, March.
    5. Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Abdul d Abiad, 2005. "Primary Surpluses and sustainable Debt Levels in Emerging Market Countries," IMF Policy Discussion Papers 2005/006, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Mr. Thomas Helbling & Ms. Sena Eken, 1999. "Back to the Future: Postwar Reconstruction and Stabilization in Lebanon," IMF Occasional Papers 1999/005, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Mr. Taimur Baig & Mr. Ilan Goldfajn, 2000. "The Russian Default and the Contagion to Brazil," IMF Working Papers 2000/160, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Mr. Harald Finger & Mr. Mauro Mecagni, 2007. "Sovereign Debt Restructuring and Debt Sustainability: An Analysis of Recent Cross-Country Experience," IMF Occasional Papers 2007/003, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mora, Nada & Neaime, Simon & Aintablian, Sebouh, 2013. "Foreign currency borrowing by small firms in emerging markets: When domestic banks intermediate dollars," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1093-1107.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoph Trebesch & Mr. Michael G. Papaioannou & Mr. Udaibir S Das, 2012. "Sovereign Debt Restructurings 1950-2010: Literature Survey, Data, and Stylized Facts," IMF Working Papers 2012/203, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Maxime MENUET & Alexandru MINEA & Patrick VILLIEU, 2017. "Public Debt, Endogenous Growth Cycles and Indeterminacy," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2467, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    3. Reinhart, Carmen M. & Reinhart, Vincent & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2015. "Dealing with debt," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(S1), pages 43-55.
    4. Panizza, Ugo & Fatás, Antonio & Ghosh, Atish R. & ,, 2019. "The Motives to Borrow," CEPR Discussion Papers 13735, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Lizarazo, Sandra Valentina, 2013. "Default risk and risk averse international investors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 317-330.
    6. Djedje Hermann YOHOU, 2015. "In Search of Fiscal Space in Africa: The Role of the Quality of Government Spending," Working Papers 201527, CERDI.
    7. Enrique G. Mendoza & Linda L. Tesar & Jing Zhang, 2014. "Saving Europe?: The Unpleasant Arithmetic of Fiscal Austerity in Integrated Economies," Working Paper Series WP-2014-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    8. Tamon Asonuma & Mike Xin Li & Saji Thomas & Michael G. Papaioannou & Eriko Togo, 2018. "Sustainability and Equity Challenges to Pension Systems: The Case of Lebanon," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 2(10), pages 67-106, December.
    9. Yilmaz Akyüz, 2007. "Debt Sustainability in Emerging Markets: A Critical Appraisal," Working Papers 61, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    10. Durdu, C. Bora & Nunes, Ricardo & Sapriza, Horacio, 2013. "News and sovereign default risk in small open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-17.
    11. Pedro Maia & Márcio Gomes Pinto Garcia, 2011. "A gerência recente do endividamento público brasileiro," Textos para discussão 595, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    12. Westerhout, Ed, 2022. "30 Years of Generational Accounting : A Critical Review," Discussion Paper 2022-021, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Frantisek Hajnovic & Juraj Zeman, 2012. "Fiscal Space in the Euro zone," Working and Discussion Papers WP 5/2012, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    14. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fiess, Norbert & MacDonald, Ronald, 2011. "The global dimension to fiscal sustainability," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 137-150, June.
    15. Adham Jaber, 2022. "Improving the estimates of fiscal space," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2022 16, Stata Users Group.
    16. Tamon Asonuma, 2010. "Serial Default and Debt Renegotiation," 2010 Meeting Papers 169, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Ostry, Jonathan D. & Debrun, Xavier & Willems, Tim & Wyplosz, Charles, 2019. "Public Debt Sustainability," CEPR Discussion Papers 14010, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Petia Topalova & Dan Nyberg, 2010. "What Level of Public Debt Could India Target?," IMF Working Papers 2010/007, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Enderlein, Henrik & Trebesch, Christoph & von Daniels, Laura, 2012. "Sovereign debt disputes: A database on government coerciveness during debt crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 250-266.
    20. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Žďárek, Václav, 2017. "Fiscal reaction function and fiscal fatigue: evidence for the euro area," Working Paper Series 2036, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; Lebanon; debt; deposit; investor;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2008/017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.