L AMPLITUDE DU CYCLE ECONOMIQUE ET DE L ECART DE PRODUCTION AU LIBAN

This article shows that the business cycle magnitude and the output gap strongly varied in the Lebanon between 1970 and 2008, the most important variations taking place from 1975 to 1990 corresponding to the period of the civil war. Nevertheless, a decrease in the discrepancy between these two indicators around the long-run trend can be observed since the beginning of 1990s. These reductions of the cyclic amplitude and output gap do not result from the end of the war in 1990 but rather from the general government final consumption expenditure and economic dependence rate. These two variables explain a mismatch between the observed GDP and the potential GP and consequently the occurrence of economic stability.