Rethinking the Lebanese economic miracle: the extreme concentration of income and wealth in Lebanon, 2005–2014

Lydia Assouad

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: I combine household surveys, national accounts and unique personal income tax records to produce the first estimates of the national income distribution in an Arab country, Lebanon. I find that income is extremely concentrated over the 2005–2014 period: The top 1 and 10 percent of the adult population received almost 25 and 55 percent of national income on average, placing Lebanon among the countries with the highest levels of income inequality in the world. These results challenge a long lasting narrative according to which inequality levels are not that high in the Middle East. They also confirm results from a large literature that emphasizes how the Lebanese sectarian-based mode of governance has allowed the ruling elite to extract large rents for decades and at the expense of the majority of citizens.

Keywords: inequality; Lebanon; national income distribution; rent-seeking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 D63 E01 I32 O15 O53 P46 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2023-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Development Economics, 1, March, 2023, 161. ISSN: 0304-3878

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:117680

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