¹ Andersen, Lisa, Mellor, Jennifer, and Milya, Jeffrey, “Income Inequality and Public Good Provision: An Experimental Analysis,” Journal of Socio-Economics 37 (2008): 1010–1028CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Amartya Sen, “The Economics of Life and Death,” Scientific American (1993): 40–47.

³ See Alesina, Alberto, Baqir, Reza, and Easterly, William, “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 94 (1999): 1243–284CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alesina, Alberto and Perotti, Roberto, “Income Distribution, Political Instability, and Investment,” European Economic Review 40 (1996): 1203–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Arguments about efficiency gains from the lifting of trade barriers apply where infrastructure and telecommunication investments are expended that reduce transport costs, coupled with public social spending that is responsive to regional differences in provision costs.

⁵ See Amartya Sen, “The Economics of Life and Death,” 40–47; Rodgers, G. B., “Income and Inequality as Determinants of Mortality: An International Cross-section Analysis,” Population Studies 33 (1979): 343–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ Deininger, Klaus and Squire, Lyn, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality: Reexamining the Links,” Finance and Development 34 (1997): 38–41Google Scholar.

⁷ Bourguignon, François, “Crime as a Social Cost of Poverty and Inequality: A Review Focusing on Developing Countries,” in Facets of Globalization: International and Local Dimensions of Development, World Bank Discussion Paper Series, WDP 415, ed. Yusuf, S., Evenett, S., and Wui, W. (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2001), 171–92Google Scholar; and Fajnzylbera, Pablo, Lederman, Daniel, and Loayza, Norman, “What Causes Violent Crime?” European Economic Review 46 (2002): 1323–357CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Alesina and Perotti, “Income Distribution,” 1203–28.

⁹ UNDP and CAS, Living Conditions of Households (Beirut: UNDP, 1997); idem, Living Conditions of Households (Beirut: UNDP, 2004).

¹⁰ The Taʾif Accords preserved the division of the three main presidencies between the Maronite, Sunni, and Shiʿi communities but adjusted the division of the parliament along sectarian lines from a ratio of six Christians to five Muslims to a ratio of one to one. Similarly, the informal division of the cabinet along sectarian lines and distribution of administrative posts by sects remained after the Taʾif Accords.

¹¹ Mona Harb El-Kak, “Towards a Regionally Balanced Development,” UNDP Conference on Linking Economic Growth and Social Development, Beirut, Lebanon, 11–13 January 2000.

¹² M. Fawaz, “L'amenagement du territoire et l'environnement au Liban depuis l'Independance,” Lettre d'information de l'ORBR, no. 11, Beyrouth, Cermoc, 1999, 5–8.

¹³ World Bank, Lebanon Public Expenditure Reform Priorities for Fiscal Adjustment, Growth and Poverty Alleviation. Report No. 32857–LB (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2005).

¹⁴ One of the rare overviews of corruption cases in postwar reconstruction in Lebanon is Adwan, Charles, “Corruption in Reconstruction: The Cost of National Consensus in Post-War Lebanon,” in Corruption in Postwar Reconstruction: Confronting the Vicious Circle, ed. Large, Daniel (Beirut: Lebanese Transparency Association, 2005)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ World Bank, Lebanon Public Expenditure, 49.

¹⁶ Lebanon, Ministry of Finance, “Public Finance Prospects 2006: Ministry of Finance Yearly Report,” http://www.finance.gov.lb/NR/rdonlyres/365AA3C9-F58C-4755-9316-2C743E9F7EA3/0/YR_2006.pdf (accessed 28 June 2010), 13, 19.

¹⁷ Santiago Herrera and Gaobo Pang, “Efficiency in Public Spending in Developing Countries: An Efficiency Frontier Approach,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper no. 3645 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2005). These countries are Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Kuwait, and Chile.

¹⁸ As measured by net primary- and secondary-school enrollment.

¹⁹ As measured by life and life-disability-adjusted expectancy at birth and immunization rates (DPT and measles).

²⁰ Private spending on health over GDP averages 2.3 percent for the 187 countries sampled compared to 10.2 percent in Lebanon. There is no similar figure for private education. Public-education spending averages 4.5 percent of GDP for 166 countries sampled.

²¹ Chaaban, Jad and Gebara, Khalil, “Development in a Polarized Society: Looking at Economic and Social Development in Lebanon through a Different Lens,” Abaad 11 (2007), Lebanese Center for Policy StudiesGoogle Scholar.

²² Despite this improvement, severe poverty pockets still exist in Beirut suburbs and Palestinian camps.

²³ UNDP, Poverty, Growth and Income Distribution in Lebanon (Beirut: UNDP, 2007), 8.

²⁴ These data were compiled in Sandra Chaoul's “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures: New Evidence from Lebanon” (master's thesis, American University of Beirut, 2007). UNDP and MOSA data are from the report of the household surveys, CAS data are from annual reports and the CAS website, CDR data are published in Lebanese Contractor magazine, and World Bank data are taken from the World Bank report on public spending in Lebanon.

²⁵ UNDP and CAS, Living Conditions of Households (1997 and 2004).

²⁶ Chaoul, “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures,” 39.

²⁷ UNDP and CAS, Living Conditions of Households (2004).

²⁸ Chaoul, “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures,” 43.

²⁹ This analysis does not account for the size or the quality of the schools in question. Still, unless there is reason to believe that some districts have systematically smaller schools than others, the disparity in the numbers of schools across districts shown in Table 5 begs further explanation. Table 6 deals with the size issue.

³⁰ Chaoul, “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures,” 45.

³¹ The annual budget of MOSA is U.S. $60 million, of which 80 percent is spent on the care of 30,000 children, most of it through NGOs that contract with the government. These reached 156 institutions in 2005.

³² World Bank, Lebanon Public Expenditure, 49.

³³ UNDP and CAS, Living Conditions of Households (1997).

³⁴ Nisreen Salti, Jad Chaaban, and Nadia Naamani, “The Economics of Tobacco in Lebanon: An Estimation of the Social Costs of Tobacco Consumption,” Issam Fares Institute and the Tobacco Research Group, American University of Beirut, http://www.aub.edu.lb/ifi/public_policy/rapp/rapp_research/Documents/economics_of_tobacco_lebanon/Final_Report/The_Economics_of_Tobacco_in_Lebanon.pdf (accessed 28 June 2010); article under review at Tobacco Control. See also Hamze, Mouin and Khoudoud, Abir Abou El, Agriculture, Fishery, Food, and Sustainable Rural Development in the Mediterranean Region: Annual Report 2005, Lebanon (Beirut: Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques, 2005)Google Scholar.

³⁵ World Bank, Lebanon Public Expenditure, 35.

³⁶ Chaoul, “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures,” 47.

³⁷ World Bank, Doing Business 2010 Lebanon (Washington, D.C.: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2009), 56.

³⁸ Chaaban and Gebara, “Development in a Polarized Society,” 15–19.

³⁹ Ghassan Dibeh, “The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction in Lebanon” (2005) UNU-WIDER Research Papers, http://works.bepress.com/ghassan_dibeh/1 (accessed 18 June 2010).

⁴⁰ Ibid.

⁴¹ These include spending on roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools as reported in the CDR's project database.

⁴² This argument is not really sensitive to the fact that the confessional distribution is based on registered rather than residing voters, because political power in Lebanon is transmitted through elections based on registered voters of a given confession in their birthplace and not their current area of residence.

⁴³ Held, Colbert, Middle East Patterns: Places, People, and Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Faour, Muhammad, “Religion, Demography and Politics in Lebanon,” Middle Eastern Studies 43 (2007): 909–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Dibeh, “The Political Economy of Postwar Reconstruction in Lebanon.”

⁴⁶ Ibid., 50.

⁴⁷ See Ofeish, Sami, “Lebanon's Second Republic: Secular Talk, Sectarian Application,” Arab Studies Quarterly 21 (2000): 97–116Google Scholar; Rigby, Andrew, “Lebanon: Patterns of Confessional Politics,” Parliamentary Affairs 53 (2000): 169–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hudson, Michael, “Lebanon After Ta'if: Another Reform Opportunity Lost,” Arab Studies Quarterly 21 (1999): 27–40Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Ndikumana, Léonce, “Fiscal Policy, Conflict and Reconstruction in Burundi and Rwanda,” in Fiscal Policy for Development: Poverty, Reconstruction and Growth, ed. Addison, T. and Roe, A. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan for UNU-WIDER, 2004), 274–302Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ See Berhman, J. R. and Craig, S. G., “The Distribution of Public Services: An Exploration of Local Government Preferences, American Economic Review 77 (1987): 315–32Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Sandra Chaoul, “Corruption in the Provision of Public Expenditures: New Evidence from Lebanon” (master's thesis, American University of Beirut, 2007).