Thomas Schellen

Lebanon’s political economy today is in a situation where risks are existential and inaction opens the gates to disaster, but potential payoffs are highly skewed to the upside—if successful. This …

IN BRIEF The implications of Lebanon’s current fiscal crisis are grave, but not fated to be devastating.  Economic rescue plans circulating remain in the pro-private and neo-liberal economic modes of …

For the roundtable on financial reality, monetary needs, and trade and energy issues, the discussion brief invited debate on the role and responsibility of the central bank, the banking sector, …

The roundtable covered in this piece was dedicated to economic angles of fiscal reform and taxation. Thus, in the context of Executive’s mission and coverage focuses, both it and the …

Before the October 2019 uprising, it was not difficult to list unresolved questions and some outright disappointments with the way that the Lebanese entrepreneurship ecosystem had been shaped in the …

Two months after a blundering collage of new budgetary revenue measures drove people into a unified and spontaneous civil uprising, the state of Lebanon remains an unresolved mess. Six weeks …

When darkness and despair are the first two options on the menu for your country, followed by austerity and depression as the plat de jour proposals, nothing is more appropriate …

Constitutions are serious stuff. The one that I grew up under is known as the Grundgesetz—the fundamental law of Germany. In its first line, this constitution declares that the dignity …

Houmal Technology Park (HTP) can be an example of tech manufacture and fruitful entrepreneurialism. Export orientation of tech companies can be realized independently from the Lebanese entrepreneurship ecosystem that relies …

October 2019 events have hallmarks of systemic shocks. Risks are unfathomable and early economic impact evaluations are necessarily inadequate. The future may depend on extraordinary courage, discipline, and daring visions. …