Safe from harm?

Is Lebanon a genuine emerging economy? If so, how has the country been able to escape unscathed through the domino-like collapse of new entrants into the global financial architecture. After the implosion of several Asian “tiger” economies and the more recent Russian debt crisis, it seemed that the Lebanese bubble would burst. The common reflections on Lebanon as a potential ground were driven by fears over the fiscal imbalance and the stagnating macro economy. The emerging economies are in a sense the periphery in the global financial structure, and as the “hot” money (mainly composed of hedge funds and short term punters) flowed from the center to the periphery, many of the emerging countries witnessed a period of over investment. The excess inflows within a weak regulatory environment exposed certain vulnerabilities that highlighted a divide between both monetary and real factors. Once the short-term money flows reversed, the countries were