This paper studies how the transition from self-employment to employee-jobs over the long run of development explains growth in income tax capacity. I construct a new database which covers 100 household surveys across countries at different income levels and 140 years of historical data within...

Can taxes on consumption redistribute in developing countries? Contrary to consensus, we show that taxing consumption is progressive once we account for informal consumption. Using household expenditure surveys in 32 countries we proxy for informal consumption using the type of store where...

Can consumption taxes reduce inequality in developing countries? We combine household expenditure data from 31 countries with theory to shed new light on the redistributive potential and optimal design of consumption taxes. We use the place of purchase of each expenditure to proxy for informal...

By their very definition, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) originate in hinterlands and link to final consumers through value chains. This paper quantifies four value chains of the highly valuable agarwood sourced in Lao People's Democratic Republic, by looking at the actors involved and the...

Based on a case study on agarwood and Aquilaria spp. in Lao P.D.R., NTFP commercialisation is analyzed through its effect on income distribution, and with a specific objective to trace out mechanisms by which different economic agents along the commodity chain, that is in harvesting, trade,...

Based on interviews with 103 leaders of groups harvesting agarwood in various parts of Lao PDR we identify income determinants and prepare a typology of harvesters. There are three main groups of harvesters: [a] highly professional, migrant harvesters from Vietnam; [b] nonlocal, professional...