In recent years the level of taxation of many developing countries has changed dramatically over relatively short periods. These changes are too large and too sudden to attribute fully to a deterioration in tax administration or to changes in the traditional determinants of tax levels. The paper...

With the advent of the economic and monetary union in the European Union (EU), the economic landscape of the EU will bear a striking resemblance to that of the United States in terms of fundamental attributes such as the freedom of internal movements of individuals, capital, and goods within the...

This paper discusses the role of the state from a historical perspective. It outlines how that role has changed over the past hundred years and discusses the forces that have promoted the changes. In the period between 1913 and 1980, there was a large increase in public spending in industrial...

This paper discusses important tax policy issues facing developing countries today. It views tax policy from both the macroeconomic perspective, which focuses on broad questions such as the level and composition of tax revenue, and the microeconomic perspective, which focuses on certain design...

Given the increasing integration of financial markets, a better understanding of the effects of fiscal deficits and debt on real interest rates might be obtained by taking a global, rather than a national, perspective. The paper constructs aggregate flow and stock data (including GDP, fiscal...

Tax administration plays a crucial role In determining a country’s real (or effective) tax system. Unfortunately, tax administrations in many countries do not function optimally and distort the intention of tax laws. In order for taxation to have its intended effect on the allocation of...

Corruption, particularly political or “grand” corruption, distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distortions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that higher corruption is associated with (i)...

This paper assembles a set of relevant fiscal data, for both the individual countries and for the aggregate G-7 and 18 industrial countries, which covers a period long enough to allow an assessment of trends and the conduct of econometric tests. The “world” fiscal deficit has been rising...