02122cas a2200253 a 4500 AALejournalIMF006036 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781451873429 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Finger, Harald. Lebanon-Determinants of Commercial Bank Deposits in a Regional Financial Center / Harald Finger, Heiko Hesse. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2009. 1 online resource (21 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students This paper empirically examines the demand for commercial bank deposits in Lebanon, a regional financial center. With Lebanon's high fiscal deficits financed largely by domestic commercial banks that rely on deposit funding, deposit growth is a key variable to assess government financing conditions. At the macro level, we find that domestic factors such as economic activity, prices, and the interest differential between the Lebanese pound and the U.S. dollar are significant in explaining deposit demand, as are external factors such as advanced economy economic and financial conditions and variables proxying the availability of funds from the Gulf. Impulse response functions and variance decomposition analyses underscore the relative importance of the external variables. At the micro level, we find that in addition, bank-specific variables, such as the perceived riskiness of individual banks, their liquidity buffers, loan exposure, and interest margins, bear a significant influence on the demand for deposits. Mode of access: Internet Hesse, Heiko. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2009/195 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2009/195/001.2009.issue-195-en.xml IMF e-Library