Banking on the State
eBook - PDF

Banking on the State

The Financial Foundations of Lebanon

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Banking on the State

The Financial Foundations of Lebanon

About this book

In 1943, Lebanon gained its formal political independence from France; only after two more decades did the country finally establish a national central bank. Inaugurated on April 1, 1964, the Banque du Liban (BDL) was billed by Lebanese authorities as the nation's primary symbol of economic sovereignty and as the last step towards full independence. In the local press, it was described as a means of projecting state power and enhancing national pride. Yet the history of its founding—stretching from its Ottoman origins in mid-nineteenth century up until the mid-twentieth—tells a different, more complex story.

Banking on the State reveals how the financial foundations of Lebanon were shaped by the history of the standardization of economic practices and financial regimes within the decolonizing world. The system of central banking that emerged was the product of a complex interaction of war, economic policies, international financial regimes, post-colonial state-building, global currents of technocratic knowledge, and private business interests. It served rather than challenged the interests of an oligarchy of local bankers. As Hicham Safieddine shows, the set of arrangements that governed the central bank thus was dictated by dynamics of political power and financial profit more than market forces, national interest or economic sovereignty.

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Yes, you can access Banking on the State by Hicham Safieddine in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Economic History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. List of Abbreviations
  5. Introduction: Illusions of Financial Independence
  6. 1. Colonial Finance: The Long Monetary Mandate
  7. 2. Central Bank Reform: Ideas and Institutions
  8. 3. Barons of Banking: The Untouchables
  9. 4. Banque du Liban: A FaƧade of Economic Sovereignty
  10. 5. Suits and Shadows: The Intra Affair
  11. 6. Financial Regime Change: The Last Refuge of Laissez-faire
  12. Conclusion: Sovereign Debt, Sovereign Banks
  13. Notes
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index