Issues of taxation and development, which have long been a central concern of the IMF, have attracted wider and renewed interest in the last few years. This paper reflects on three broad lessons of experience: that developing countries differ vastly in tax matters, and in ways that are less than...

High natural resource prices in recent years have resulted in sizeable increases in fiscal revenue for many resource-exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this revenue source is volatile, and arguably these countries should also rely on other forms of taxation to help fund public...

Implementation of fiscal consolidation by advanced economies in coming years needs to take into account the short and long-run interactions between economic growth and fiscal policy. Many countries must reduce high public debt to GDP ratios that penalize longterm growth. However, fiscal...

For Afghanistan, the dual prospect of declining donor support and high ongoing security spending over the medium term keeps the government budget tight. This paper uses a general equilibrium model to capture the security-development tradeoff facing the government in its effort to rehabilitate...

Mobilizing more revenue is a priority for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Countries have to finance their development agendas, and weak revenue mobilization is the root cause of fiscal imbalances in several countries. This paper reviews the experience of low-income SSA countries in...

This paper critically reviews recent work regarding the sustainability of public debt. It argues that Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSAs) should be more than mere mechanical simulation exercises. Instead, a DSA should be linked to some objective regarding the distribution of fiscal burdens and...

External shocks pose major challenges to fiscal policy makers through lower output and large fiscal imbalances. This paper analyzes the case of Moldova, which faced parallel crises a decade apart: the Russian crisis of 1998 and the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The country went through...

Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland face the serious challenge of adjusting not only to lower Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) transfers because of the global economic crisis, but also to a potential further decline over the medium term. This paper assesses options for the design of...

This paper quantifies the variability of tax elasticities in Lithuania using two alternative methods: rolling regressions and pooled mean group estimator. The analysis is motivated by the systematic variation of tax revenues observed over the economic cycle in the recent past. Both methods...

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...