The objectives underlying agricultural output subsidies can have conflicting implications for the design of subsidy programs. As they tend to affect meaningful swaths of the electorate, subsidies can also be an attractive political instrument. By artificially lowering production costs or...

The rapid advent of digital money (DM) and assets raises questions about its implications for the functioning of the international monetary system (IMS). The low transaction costs of digital technologies, their accessibility and ease of automation, and their integration into existing digital...

Using cross-country data, this note explores the potential impact of selected digital technologies on tax collection and compliance. The analysis makes use of multi-dimensional International Survey on Revenue Administration, Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool, and Revenue...

This note discusses, through selected country case studies, how digital health records and telemedicine can improve delivery quality, access to underserved populations, and resource utilization in healthcare. In addition, it shows how digital disease surveillance tools can identify outbreaks and...

The global food crisis remains a major challenge. Food insecurity fueled by widely experienced increases in the cost of living has become a growing concern especially in low-income countries, even if price pressures on global food markets have softened somewhat since the onset of Russia's war in...

This paper examines the common perception that internet adoption accelerated globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data show little evidence of a faster expansion of access to internet (extensive margin) across all country income groups but strong evidence of acceleration in the improvement...

Social safety nets (SSNs) are focal policies that support poor and vulnerable households, most prominently through cash transfers. However, strong discrepancies persist across countries in terms of spending, coverage, and targeting of SSNs, with larger gaps often found in low-income countries....

Digitalization has the potential to bring great economic benefits, but it is also creating new challenges. This note focuses on trade in digitized products, its fiscal revenue implications, and the appropriate role for domestic and border tax instruments in this context. As digitized trade...

The digitalization of public services, known as GovTech, can disrupt traditional mechanisms to promote economic development (for example, financial inclusion, education, and health care), improve the delivery of public services, and expedite development objectives. For GovTech to be successful...

Russia's war in Ukraine has exacerbated food insecurity that had already been on the rise for half a decade. Low-income countries are affected the most. This note suggests that the food and fertilizer price shock would add $9 billion in 2022 and 2023 to the import bills of the 48 most affected...