Assessing tax gaps-the difference between the potential and actual taxes raised-plays a vital role in achieving positive domestic revenue objectives through improved and reformed taxation. This is particularly pertinent for growth outcomes in developing countries. This study uses a bottom-up...

Improving tax collection is essential if developing economies are to avoid over-reliance on external donor funds and loans. Revenue authorities in the Global South have recently adopted new policy tools to improve domestic revenue mobilization through taxes. One such new policy is a withholding...

Reducing the gender gap in education is a primary goal for many countries. Two major challenges for many girls are the distance to school and their safety when commuting to school. In Zambia, we studied the impact of providing a bicycle to a school-going girl who lives more than 3 km from the...

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, adaptation debates have increasingly shifted from focusing narrowly on finance to considerations around governance of programming, implementation and impact of support for climate change mitigation and adaptation. The character of finance for climate change...

Inefficiency is common in many of the world's water utilities, especially in developing countries. The problem derives from a range of different causes relating primarily to technical, organizational, and commercial (TOC) factors. Evidence from a World Bank study conducted in 2020 shows that...

This report reviews the experiences of market linkage programs implemented globally, particularly those focused on poor smallholders, including women, as beneficiaries and farmers who participated in government social safety net schemes. The report highlights lessons learned by program...

The Government of the Republic of Zambia aims to transform the economy to support economic growth and facilitate job creation. Central to the transformation agenda is a commitment to open trade regime for agricultural exports and imports. Zambia has a long history of import and export...

The Government of the Republic of Zambia aims to transform the economy to support economic growth and facilitate job creation. Central to the transformation agenda is a commitment to open trade regime for agricultural exports and imports. Zambia has a long history of import and export...

This paper examines how formal firms have been impacted by and recovered from the pandemic, by drawing on two distinct but complementary data sources. This is the first attempt to use both survey and tax administrative data to measure the initial decline and subsequent recovery of firm sales and...

There is currently a major focus on digitization within African countries, with the interest of, on the one hand, increasing efficiency and lowering the cost-of-service delivery, and on the other hand, increasing financial inclusion for excluded parts of the population. Zambia provides an...

Inefficiency is common in many of the world's water utilities, especially in developing countries. The problem derives from a range of different causes relating primarily to technical, organizational, and commercial (TOC) factors. Evidence from a World Bank study conducted in 2020 shows that...

Reducing the gender gap in education is a primary goal for many countries. Two major challenges for many girls are the distance to school and their safety when commuting to school. In Zambia, we studied the impact of providing a bicycle to a school-going girl who lives more than 3 km from the...

This paper examines the distributional impacts of agricultural policies versus those of cash transfers using a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Zambia for the policy year 2020. The analysis also considers the behavioural impacts of input subsidies and social cash transfers. The results...

Reducing the gender gap in education is a primary goal for many countries. Some major challenges for many girls include the distance to school, their safety when commuting to school, lack of agency, and deep-rooted cultural norms. In Zambia, we studied the impact of providing a bicycle to a...

This paper examines how formal firms have been impacted by and recovered from the pandemic by drawing on two distinct but complementary data sources. This is the first attempt to use both survey and tax administrative data to measure the initial decline and subsequent recovery of firm sales and...

Nucleus-outgrower schemes (NOSs) are supposed to be a particularly effective private-sector mechanism to support smallholder farmers and contribute towards mitigating the problematic aspects of pure large-scale agricultural investments. This discussion paper uses panel household survey data...

Can absolute minimum capital rules be used by lower-income countries when Basel-inspired capital rules are insufficient for their high equity, high-risk contexts? We discuss the limitations of standard capital rules for reducing bank risk in less developed financial systems and quantitatively...

We use a randomized controlled trial in Zambia to measure the economic impacts of house screening against the transmission of malaria. We focus on malaria prevalence rates, labor supply, and income, and consider individual and household level outcomes. The treatment group received house screens...

In this paper, we have two main objectives: to investigate the links between globalization and poverty observed in Zambia during the 1990s, and to explore the poverty impacts of non-traditional export growth. We look at consumption and income effects separately. On the consumption side, we study...

We study the relationship between the labor market for loan officers and access to credit in the residential mortgage market. Using novel data matching the (near) universe of mortgage applications to loan officers, we find that minorities are significantly underrepresented among mortgage loan...

This paper contributes to the smallholder agriculture commercialisation literature by applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour in an under-researched developing country context. The study examines the influence of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control on the Scaling-Up...

Zambia shifted its economic growth model from the command oriented economic growth in 1991, to a Profit -led economic growth in anticipation for accelerated social and economic growth. The shift in the economic growth orientation and the enthusiasm of the state and policymakers to ignite the...

What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COVID-19 in the country. The paper also estimates...

Zambia has changed its mineral tax regime repeatedly during the past decades in a bid to raise mineral revenue, but with only modest success. This paper looks at what the country needs to do to create a mining fiscal regime that could sustain operations, boost output, and raise revenues without...

To what extent do the behavioral choices of Zambian smallholder farmers influence the negative effects of climate shocks, and what impact do these choices have on vulnerability and resilience? This paper uses nationally representative, three-wave household-level panel data to investigate these...

Zambia and Zimbabwe have experienced food security emergencies of varying severity, mainly caused by drought and floods in some areas. Like several countries in Africa and elsewhere, the two countries have developed and used Strategic Grain Reserves (SGR) to cope with food emergencies and other...

Despite accounts of increasing large farm penetration in Africa and an active debate on the differential potential of smallholder versus large farms to satisfy Africa's food requirements, evidence on the extent and performance of different farm types remains limited. A census and subsequent...