Lecture on the Impact of the War in Gaza and Lebanon on the Lebanese Economy
Miss Stephanie Bechara, part-time instructor at the Department of Economics, has invited guest speaker Mr. Sami Zoughaib, Economist and Research Manager at The Policy Initiative, a Lebanese think tank, to deliver a presentation for her macroeconomics course (ECO 202) on Friday, February 23rd The lecture tackled the impact of the war in Gaza and Lebanon on the Lebanese economy.
The presentation, delivered at the Byblos campus, was open to the students of the section, in addition to other economics students at the university, who joined the class on Friday.
The initiative was taken in an effort to help students understand how different economic concepts (GDP, economic sectors, investments, foreign direct investments (FDI)…) get affected by outside factors such as geopolitical tensions, in addition to neighboring and national conflicts on Lebanese soil.
In his presentation, Mr. Zoughaib shared numbers evaluating the losses to Lebanon’s already vulnerable economy, in dollar terms, and offered an analysis of the different scenarios the country could encounter (status quo, versus a full escalation of the war) and their repercussions on the economy.
The lecture was concluded by a Q&A, providing room for different discussions and debates with the speaker.
About the speaker
Sami Zoughaib is an Economist and Research Manager at The Policy Initiative. His research focuses on Lebanon’s political economy, governance structures, macroeconomics, and local economic development. He has also worked as an Economist and a Policy Consultant for the UNDP and the World Bank, respectively.
In addition to managing the research team, he also coordinates and conceptualizes TPI’s research projects. Prior to joining TPI, Sami was a researcher at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, where he led and worked on several projects related to international donor conferences, parliamentary elections, and monitoring legislative production and reform. In addition to his affiliate platforms, Sami’s research has been published in Governance, Economic Research Forum, open Democracy, L’Orient-Le Jour, L’Orient Today, Annahar, and Al-Akhbar. Sami holds an M.A. in Public Policy from the University of Reading and a B.A. in Economics from the American University of Beirut.