Over the past ten years, the government of Singapore has sought to modernize and computerize Singapore. Tax administration was one area of public administration that clearly required modernization. In 1992 the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) was created to administer income and...

Several generations of economists have analyzed the relationship between fiscal policy and the business cycle. How is fiscal policy actually conducted over the business cycle? From a public policy point of view, the interpretation based on credit market imperfections calls for ensuring that...

Computerization is an important part of World Bank tax and customs projects. Revenue administration computerization projects should be seen in the broader context of public sector reforms. They touch on issues such as the government's overall strategy for information technology, the revenue...

Many people have questioned whether the world's poor share in economic growth. This note synthesizes the empirical evidence. The data show that economic growth typically reduces poverty and can usually be deemed pro-poor. But there is wide divergence across countries. In some cases the poor have...

Gains in total factor productivity (TFP) reflecting more efficient use of inputs, have long been recognized as an important source of improvements in income and welfare. Cross-country differences in income levels and growth rates are mostly due to differences in productivity. Measuring TFP is...

In 1999, the Indonesian Parliament adopted two laws requiring that drastic decentralization measures be implemented in fiscal 2001 in a "big bang" fashion. Several lessons can be drawn from Indonesia's experience. 1) Ideally, decentralization should be managed so that the devolution of fiscal...

Since the early 1980s fiscal and political decentralization have spread around the world. But decentralization can encourage dangerous opportunistic behavior by state and local officials. Left unrestricted, such opportunism can undermine macroeconomic stability and other objectives. The most...

The note reviews England's experience on the potential of small claims procedures in expanding access to justice, which allow legal redress in situations where formal litigation would be too costly. But, while these procedures offer access to justice, they also illustrate the difficulties that...

Providing information to the public is an essential but insufficient step in making local government more transparent. A participatory process is also needed, both to ensure accountability and to reinforce healthy relationships between people and government. Empirical data linked to a...

World Bank-supported efforts to reform public institutions--including tax and customs administration--increasingly rely on institutional analysis. But there are no formal, generally accepted guidelines for analyzing tax systems. As a result the Bank's task managers and team leaders conduct these...