Successful trade policy reform, often requires customs reform. In the 1990s Morocco's trade policies were strongly influenced by its agreement with the European Union, with the World Trade Center, and the Multi-fiber Agreement, which led the Customs and Indirect Taxes Administration to examine...

Although attention has focused on public sector initiatives to fight corruption on the demand side, private companies in every region have developed programs to fight it on the supply side. Policymakers and advocacy groups-such as Transparency International-consider such preventive efforts to be...

Growing experience with decentralization indicates that a country's public finance system suffers when subnational governments expose themselves to excessive risk. But central governments often lack the information needed to monitor the fiscal risks of subnational governments. Several countries,...

Since the early 1980s many developing counties have tried to count and contain the number of civil servants as part of public sector reforms-including reforms funded by the World Bank. These initiatives, variously described as censuses, enumerations, headcounts, staff audits, payroll...

In 1998 Ghana's government successfully introduced a value added tax (VAT). But this success followed a failed attempt in 1995, when the country's first VAT was repealed after just three and a half months. Ghana's experience provides several lessons for the successful introduction of a...

The reforms were remarkably successful: by 1997 internal tax revenue had recovered to 13 percent of GDP-despite an extremely difficult political and economic environment-and 90 percent of large corporate taxpayers surveyed believed that taxpayer services had improved. The reforms had several key...

Supreme audit institutions are national agencies responsible for auditing government revenue and spending. Their legal mandates, reporting relationships, and effectiveness vary, reflecting different governance systems and government policies. But their primary purpose is to oversee the...

Decentralization holds a lot of promise, but whether it improves public service delivery depends on the institutional arrangements governing its implementation. Several conditions must be met before the full benefits of decentralization can be reaped. First, for decentralization to increase...

Decentralization holds a lot of promise, but whether it improves public service delivery depends on the institutional arrangements governing its implementation. Several conditions must be met before the full benefits of decentralization can be reaped. First, for decentralization to increase...

Following the European model, many developing, and transitional economies have established councils, independent of other government branches to govern their judiciaries. Spain's experience illustrates the issues raised by the creation, and operation of these entities. It's Constitution states...