This note discusses capital controls using insights from the trade policy literature. It highlights some key issues that have been neglected in the current international debate on capital controls. Capital is tradable in the same way as many goods and services are. As a result, much of the...

In the 1970s, taxation of "windfall" profits from primary products and intervention in trade and production has tempted governments into expansionary fiscal policies while stifling the private sector and depressing growth. However, the experience of the recent coffee boom has so far been more...

This study looks at the interrelationship between fiscal policy and safe assets as there is surprisingly little analysis about this beyond fleeting references. The study argues that from a certain point more public debt will not "buy" more safety: countries face a kind of "safe-assets Laffer...

Beyond fleeting references, there is surprisingly little analysis about the interrelationship between fiscal policy and safe assets. This study analyses this interrelationship and argues that, at a certain point, more public debt will not “buy” more safety: countries face a kind of “safe...

We assess how “big” government should reasonably be in a number of advanced countries. First, we will link the recent findings of Data Envelope Analysis on efficient public expenditure with the question of the size of the government. Second, we report descriptive analysis of various...

This paper examines the impact of public spending on income distribution in OECD countries, paying attention in particular to the impact of the quality of education and public institutions. The paper assesses the efficiency of public spending in improving income distribution by using Data...

This paper tries to assess quantitatively the role of electronic commerce in economic activity and in trade and tariff revenue collection. The share of value added that potentially lends itself to electronic trade represents around 30 percent of GDP, most importantly distribution, finance and...