Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Nada Mora

Author

Nada Mora
Lebanese University and Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS)

Nada Mora completed her S.B. in Economics (1998) and Ph.D. in Economics (2003) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She taught at the American University of Beirut from 2003 to 2007 where she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics. She worked in central banking from 2007 to 2016 as an economist with the Bank of England, a senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and later a principal financial economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. During her time in central banking, she contributed to supervisory models and quantitative bank exams for stress testing. She currently lectures at the Lebanese University and is also a senior fellow at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS). Her primary research area is financial economics examining financial intermediation and financial crises mainly through the empirical commercial bank setting. She has contributed studies on funding costs of financial intermediaries, credit risk, and dollarization. Her work has been published in the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of Money Credit and Banking, and the Journal of Finance.

Content by this Author

It’s not too late to find a way out of Lebanon’s financial crisis

Lebanon’s financial crisis developed over a long period of time before shaping into a dollar liquidity shortage from the summer of 2019. This column argues that a key first step in any effective policy response is to separate the government debt problem from the liquidity problem: this way, debt restructuring can proceed without causing more liquidity problems. The country also needs economic growth to begin to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio to a sustainable level.

Most read

Connectivity and conflict: understanding the risks of inequality in the Middle East

While high inequality does not always lead to conflict, new research reported in this column shows that widespread internet access acts as a catalyst, transforming economic grievances into political instability. For policy-makers in the Middle East and North Africa, this means that as digital connectivity expands, the security costs of ignoring economic disparities rise dramatically. The combination of idle youth, high inequality and high-speed internet is a volatile mix.

The political economy of stalled structural reforms in MENA

There is a persistent pattern to the structural reforms that are required to underpin economic progress in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa: ambitious strategies are announced and partially implemented, but ultimately they are diluted or reversed. This column argues that the repeated stalling of reform is not primarily a failure of economic design. Rather, it reflects deep-seated political economy constraints rooted in rent dependence, elite bargaining and weak institutional credibility. Without addressing these underlying dynamics, reform efforts are likely to remain symbolic rather than transformative.

Untapped talent, unrealised growth: jobs and women in the MENAAP region

Only around one in five women of working age participate in the labour markets of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan. As this column explains, the region can no longer afford to leave half its human capital underused. Expanding women’s labour force participation is central to growth and resilience in the face of looming demographic change.

Closing the gender gap in political participation in MENA

Women across the Middle East and North Africa participate less than men in politics – not only in political parties and elections, but also in petitions, boycotts, protests and strikes. This column reports evidence from ten countries showing that differences in education, employment and political attitudes explain part of this disparity, yet a significant gender gap remains.

Labour demand and informal employment in Egypt’s manufacturing sector

Egypt’s manufacturing sector faces a dual challenge of weak job creation and persistent informality. Drawing on survey evidence on business behaviour and labour market dynamics, this column explains why job creation is limited and informal work remains such an integral part of how firms organise production. The generation of more formal jobs requires a comprehensive policy approach, one that goes beyond enforcement of labour regulations to reshape the economic environment in which firms and workers make decisions.




Linkedin