BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — A Lebanese economist said Thursday that Israeli geopolitical instability stands behind Lebanese financial crises. “Any Israeli political instability will automatically affect the Lebanese financial market within seven months,” Layal Mansour, a researcher at the American University of Beirut, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. “Israel becomes an economic external variable in triggering a financial stress for Lebanon. In other terms, any geopolitical instability in Israel is translated economically in Lebanon through the financial sector,” Mansour added. She reached this conclusion after a long research and study of a Financial Stress Index (FSI) her team has constructed on a monthly basis from 1998 to August 2018.

The FSI distinguishes between periods of market tranquility and periods of stress for Lebanon in a bid to study the impact of geopolitical instability on the Lebanese economy. “Economic recession is a general contraction of the overall activities such as consumption, production, investment and employment. A financial stress is an exaggerated behavior of stress, panic, uncertainty and insecurity by economic agents in the banking sector, the stock market and debt market, usually expressed in interest rate percentage change,” Mansour explained. One of the results found by Mansour is that a financial stress will definitely cause an economic recession within one month while economic recession doesn’t seem to cause a financial stress. She added that slower economic growth doesn’t mean financial stress, but when it happens in parallel with an Israeli geopolitical instability, it will cause a financial crisis. “Economic recession makes Lebanon more vulnerable and is subject to trigger financial crises if any Israeli geopolitical instability occurs,” said Mansour.