Most mining operations in developing countries are de facto public-private partnerships, as the state typically owns the resources and partners with a company or consortium in extraction. Revenue sharing is a critically important element of such partnerships, and it is the starting point for any...

We estimate the long-run effects of oil wealth on development by exploiting spatial variation in sedimentary basins---areas where petroleum can potentially form. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that oil production impedes democracy and fiscal capacity development, increases corruption,...

Thai Abstract: บทความนี้วิเคราะห์ระบบการคลังปิโตรเลียมของประเทศไทยภายใต้ระบบสัมปทาน Thailand I และ Thailand III...

Reviews of the UK Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 indicate that their policies to tackle inequality have been ineffective. This paper examines some structural causes of inequality and explains how it has been exacerbated by the fiscal crisis. It proposes a framing of this debate in...

This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some...

Informal payments are a frequently overlooked source of local public finance in developing countries. We use microdata from ten countries to establish stylized facts on the magnitude, form, and distributional implications of this "informal taxation." Informal taxation is widespread, particularly...

Attempts to raise a significant percentage of GDP in revenue from a broad-based financial transactions tax are likely to fail both by raising much less revenue than expected and by generating far-reaching changes in economic behaviour. Although the side-effects would include a sizable...

This article challenges claims that liberalizing state regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. The analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the last three decades suggests that the effects of liberalization and structural adjustment are...

Higher sales tax in the home country relative to a neighboring country creates a huge incentive for consumers who live closer to the border to purchase goods across the border. Using a unique panel dataset of consumer financial transactions, we find that, when facing higher domestic sales tax,...

There has been surprisingly little empirical work explaining why countries choose different bundles of taxes. Early research by Musgrave and Hinrichs focused on the amorphous distinction between direct and indirect taxes. More recent research has examined the use of trade taxes and inflation,...