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Publications (153)
Journal Article
ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study investigates the effects of taxation on income inequality in an unbalanced panel of 45 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1980–2018. We use two-stage least squares and the instrumental variables quantile regression estimates. We find that taxation...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies
While it is recognised that the ability of states to raise revenues (i.e., fiscal capacity) is important for the provision of key public goods in less developed economies, it is less clear what its determinants are and what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
When seeking to increase their tax revenues, policy-makers face a likely tradeoff between decreasing personal income tax rates (making formalizing more attractive and potentially contributing to revenue) and alternatively raising tax rates (potentially slowing down the formalization of the economy...
Journal Article
– Insights from survey and tax administrative data in Zambia
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study examines how formal firms have been impacted by and recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, by drawing on two distinct but complementary data sources. This is the first attempt to use both survey and tax administrative data to measure the impact of the...
Journal Article
– Evidence from Mexican municipalities
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
In an environment with extensive corruption where much of the population evades paying their full taxes due, we tackle the question of optimal taxation when constituencies with conflicting objectives (the poor and the rich) push tax policy in different directions. We think in terms of a government...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This article is the first to provide estimates of how minimum wages affect worker flows and employment growth rates in an employment scarce developing country context. We investigate the effects of a large, exogenous increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa. We find that changes...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This article examines the impact of foreign aid and taxes on government spending for 67 developing countries during 1980–2013 using dynamic heterogeneous (panel) time-series techniques. We find that spending, aid and tax ratios comprise an equilibrium (cointegrated) relation.On average, the aid...
Journal Article
– Evidence from financial liberalization
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW This study examines the redistributive effects of financial liberalization, including domestic and external finance reforms, implemented in 64 emerging and low-income countries over the past four decades. To identify these effects, we employ a 'doubly robust' estimation...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Measurement and concepts
This study proposes a new measure of Fiscal Dependence on Extractive revenues: FDE. The FDE estimates, simply, the extent to which extractive-producing countries can fund day-to-day government spending with non-extractive revenues.By focusing specifically on the fiscal aspect of dependency - and...
Journal Article
Globally, the largest 0.001 per cent of frms earn one-third of all corporate profts. Nonetheless, there is little understanding of how proft shifting difers across frm size. Using the universe of South African corporate tax returns and global fnancial accounts, we fnd that proft shifting is...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A review of methods and evidence
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) constitute a major challenge for development in low-income countries, as domestic resource mobilization is imperative for providing crucial public services. This study focuses exclusively on the economic dimension of IFFs, thereby excluding topics as drugs trade, money...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Formalization of individual property rights on land and taxation in sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– On the role of legibility in tax state development
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– History, politics, and institutions
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Rwandan case
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The origins and expansion of the income tax
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Implications for sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Rules versus discretionary budgets
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This special issue presents new research on the state and its links to economic and social development. The special issue focuses on the processes of institutional transformation of the state, looking at how fiscal states arise in the developing world.The resulting set of articles presents a variety...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Women’s Work
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Ecuador
By combining household survey data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with detailed tax-benefit simulations, this paper quantifies the distributional effects of COVID-19 in Ecuador and the role of tax-benefit policies in mitigating the immediate impact of the economic shocks. Our results show a...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Between 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with prior expectations, we find that large domestic...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
We study the impact of corporate taxes on firm-level investments and business activity by exploiting a 6 percentage-point reduction in the corporate tax rate in 2012–2014 in Finland. We use detailed administrative data and a difference-in-differences method comparing small corporations (tax rate...
Journal Article
– A decomposition approach
Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This study aims at characterising the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa.These countries show...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A social accounting matrix approach
This study assesses the economic costs of COVID-19 and the state of emergency implemented by the Government of Mozambique. We use a social accounting matrix multiplier analysis to estimate the effects of the pandemic on the economy. Our simulations suggest that the Mozambican economy lost 3.6...
Journal Article
This study analyses the impacts of indirect tax benefits policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value‐added tax rates on...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Direct evidence using transaction data
This paper provides the first direct systematic evidence of profit shifting through transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using South African transaction-level customs data, the author directly tests for transfer price deviations from arm's-length pricing. It is found that multinational firms...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Public economics and development action
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Public economics and development action
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Public economics and development action
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/Annual-lecture/Image/JSI-Public-economics-and-development-action.jpg?itok=3Ufsmgl3)
Tax, and public-sector matters more generally, is high on the agenda of international development. This is clearly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the United Nations General Assembly in September of 2015. SDG17 addresses the need for improving domestic resource...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Indian Experience
Part of Journal Special Issue
Migration Governance and Policy in the Global South
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Introduction and Overview
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid Impact and Effectiveness
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Bioenergy in Southern Africa
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions. Cash transfer policies are already in place in many African countries, but their coverage is still limited, although it is expanding. Many of the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Article
This study examines the implications of alternative monetary policy regimes to deal with resource revenue shocks when fiscal policy is laissez-faire—that is, when the government spends all resource revenue windfalls contemporaneously. A three-sector dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model is...
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/JSP-fiscal-policy-state-building-economic-development.png?itok=_vThattV)
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/JSP-fiscal-policy-state-building-economic-development.png?itok=_vThattV)
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/JSP-fiscal-policy-state-building-economic-development.png?itok=_vThattV)
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/JSP-fiscal-policy-state-building-economic-development.png?itok=_vThattV)
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
Displaying 48 of 153 results