The past two decades have witnessed widespread attempts to reform tax structures in developing countries. As the relatively small formal sector limits the base for taxes on income, the major reform is to replace trade taxes with sales taxes. To the extent that this has involved rationalisation...

One of the most challenging problems in developing countries such as Ghana is exchange rate management, that is, 'getting the exchange rate right' especially in the context of exchange rate misalignment. The major research and policy question is what constitutes the equilibrium real exchange...

This paper evaluates the trade-off between growth and welfare maximization from two perspectives. Firstly, it synthesizes and extends endogenous growth models with public finance to compare the growth and welfare maximizing tax rates. Secondly, it examines the distinct model outcomes in terms of...

This paper develops endogenous growth models in which the government uses income taxation to finance different types of public services, public investment, or both. The paper then assesses the merits of business perceptions of alternative fiscalpolicy related growth constraints as guides for...

This is an update of Donath et al. (CRP 21/04) which assessed the effect of the 2001 Universal Primary Education (UPE) in Tanzania on the welfare difference between youth (aged 15-35 according to the official definition) and adult (aged over 35) headed households in 2018. As anybody aged over 25...

Taxation can contribute to state-building through a tax bargain in which taxpayers are willing to increase compliance in return for improved government accountability. There is limited evidence for this in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where it is argued that the fiscal state is weak, with low tax...

Crop diversification is a farm level strategy to augment income, improve food security, and mitigate risks attributable to climate and market shocks. We use three-waves (2011/12 to 2016/17) of nationally representative repeated cross section surveys to study the impact of crop diversification on...

Charitable giving has increasingly become ‘tough love’ - it has come to require recipients to undertake costly prior action. A common justification is that of greater efficiency: willingness to undertake costly actions signals greater productivity from transfers. However, there is a...