Publication: Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2023: The Normalization of Crisis Is No Road for Stabilization
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Date
2023-05-15
ISSN
Published
2023-05-15
Author(s)
World Bank
Abstract
The systemic failure of Lebanon’s banking system and the collapse of the currency have
resulted in a large, dollarized cash-based economy, worth an estimated US$9.86 billion or 45.7
percent of GDP in 2022 (Special Focus: Gauging the Size of the Cash Economy in Lebanon). A
pervasive and growing dollarized cash economy is a
major impediment to Lebanon’s economic recovery.
It not only threatens to compromise the effectiveness
of fiscal and monetary policy, but also heightens the
risk of money laundering, increases informality, and
prompts further tax evasion. Moreover, the increasing reliance on cash transactions also threatens to
completely reverse the progress that Lebanon made
pre-crisis towards enhancing its financial integrity by
instituting robust anti-money laundering mechanisms
in its commercial banking sector.
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Citation
“World Bank. 2023. Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2023: The Normalization of Crisis Is No Road for Stabilization. © Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39814 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”