When Lebanon’s central bank announced a stimulus package in January, it was largely welcomed. But for the critics the main concern was inflation — more money in the economy would…
Benjamin Redd
Benjamin Redd
Ben is a Beirut based investigative journalist. He served as Executive's resident data geek from 2013 to 2014, and as managing editor from 2014 to 2015.
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Hovering at around 140 percent of GDP, Lebanon’s public debt ratio is thought to be the fifth-highest in the world — making it a perennial problem for politicians and policymakers…
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Imagine a day in the not-too-distant future when you sit searching an app on your phone. You find something you want to buy, but you don’t have your credit card…
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After the latest round of talks over Iran’s nuclear program this month, Europe’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton struck a cautious tone. “For the first time that I’ve seen, [there…
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The Lebanese blogosphere lit up last week when PayPal announced at the ArabNet conference that it would begin offering services in the country later this year. A gaggle of online…
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Sitting atop shifting sands, the Mosul Dam in western Iraq is precariously vulnerable to cavities that regularly form beneath it. If the holes grow large enough, they can threaten the…
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The price Arab consumers pay at the pump is drastically lower than in most other developing and emerging economies, according to data from the US-based consultancy AIRINC. While this is…
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Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati appears to be all out of options. Between thousands of public sector workers on strike for better pay and economists that warn of the dangers…
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Two years ago last week, thousands of protesters took to the streets in the tiny island kingdom of Bahrain in the wave of pro-democracy uprisings sweeping the region. The government…
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For at least a quarter of a century, development economists have been documenting the close relationship between gender equality and development: poorer regions tend to have less equality, while richer…