Based on a detailed empirical study, this paper argues that regional liberalization of trucking services has had an important effect on transport costs and tariffs for Zambia's economy. Zambia is a peculiar example in Southern Africa as it benefits from relatively low transport costs compared...

Deeper regional integration can be beneficial especially for regions along international borders. It can open up new markets on opposite sides of borders and give consumers wider access to cheaper goods. This paper uses data from five contiguous districts of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh in the...

Services have a direct impact on the competitiveness of the goods sector. This paper illustrates the importance of logistics services, their trade dimension, and how regulatory issues act as perhaps one of the most significant barriers to competitiveness. The paper discusses recent developments...

To carry out their various missions (collecting revenue, facilitating trade, and ensuring security), many customs administrations have established a risk management unit. In developing countries, however, because of the lack of dedicated human and material resources, intelligence and risk...

Are politically connected firms more likely to evade taxes? This paper presents evidence suggesting firms owned by President Ben Ali and his family were more prone to evade import tariffs. During Ben Ali’s reign, evasion gaps, defined as the difference between the value of exports to Tunisia...

This paper examines public sector size and performance management in post-revolution Tunisia, drawing on macro-empirical, legal, and qualitative analyses. The paper first shows that public sector employment figures and the wage bill have increased significantly since the 2011 revolution, but...

Long cargo dwell times in ports are a critical issue in Sub-Saharan African countries since they result in slow import processes and are bound to dramatically reduce trade. The main objective of this study is to analyze long dwell times' causes in ports in Sub-Saharan Africa from a shipper's...

Based on quantitative and qualitative data, this paper attempts to identify the main reasons why cargo dwell time in Durban port has dramatically reduced in the past decade to a current average of 3-4 days. A major customs reform; changes in port storage tariffs coupled with strict enforcement;...

This paper draws lessons from an original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was subsidized over a six-month period over a distance of 20 kilometers to serve five villages....

Many investments in infrastructure are built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a comprehensive theoretical...