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Publications (30)
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In many African countries, decentralization has long been viewed as a means for improving local service delivery. Yet, despite various decentralization initiatives, poor service delivery continues to be problematic in two of Kenya’s largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa. Despite various governance...
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– Does Politics Matter?
This study examines the role of politics on decentralization and service delivery in South Africa, with a specific focus on Johannesburg and Cape Town. The research delineates how national decentralization has affected service delivery responsibilities and resources, determines whether service...
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Uganda, like other African countries, has implemented reforms to decentralize political authority to local governments and reintroduce multiparty elections. This combination creates opportunities for national partisan struggles to emerge in local arenas and influence local service delivery. This...
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Sub-Saharan African cities have been growing at historically unprecedented rates. Since the early 1970s, they have welcomed international assistance involving a succession of major thematic objectives. The main agency involved in urban assistance has been the World Bank. But as its goals have...
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Fiscal policy measures are a key means by which governments can influence distribution and poverty, but in fact the relationships between fiscal policy and poverty are not well understood. The most commonly used technique for assessing the distributional impact, benefit incidence analysis, is...
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After more than a decade of economic decline and civil war, Uganda was able to return to economic growth thanks to the policies pursued by Museveni’s National Resistance Movement which elicited considerable donor support. They include macroeconomic reforms, public sector restructuring, privatisation...
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– The Case of Food Subsidies in India
This paper investigates the effect of a food subsidy programme in India on child malnutrition by addressing the following linked questions using household survey data that includes information on usage of the public distribution system. First, does the food subsidy induce higher expenditures on food...
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This study tests the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Burkina Faso using indicators such as the sustainable interest rate and the subsidy dependence index. The results indicate that MFIs outreach performance remains very low compared with potential demand, and the factors...
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This paper investigates the correlates of household welfare in urban Ethiopia with an emphasis on the impact of education. We use household panel data collected between 1994 and 1997. Welfare is approximated by household income. Although non-educated households are found in all income quintiles...
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– Experience from ASIP in Zambia
Sector investment programmes have become a common tool in development assistance. However, their contribution to national growth of production and poverty reduction has been less investigated. The sector investments can be seen as a part of national fiscal policy, but, when run poorly, they can...
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The present paper critically examines how aid dependent low-income countries have approached the process of public expenditure management reform during the 1990s. It begins with an overview of broader public sector reform initiatives in LDCs which provide the backdrop against which expenditure...
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To finance basic pro-poor services, the Government of Ghana must mobilize more public revenue. But tax reform has been highly controversial in Ghana. An attempt to introduce VAT in 1995 failed after widespread protests. Although a second attempt to introduce VAT in 1998 succeeded, strong resistance...
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The paper examines two issues associated with aid and fiscal policy. First, how best the conditionality behind foreign aid, sometimes non-economic, is complied with in a principal-agent framework. In a multiple task and multiple principal framework, principals are better off cooperating and making...
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This paper assesses recent theorising and empirical evidence on the impact of fiscal policy—taxes, public expenditures and budget deficits—on long-run growth. It considers the relevance of recent advances in growth theory for low-income countries and compares the evidence for low-income countries...
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This paper discusses the design of tax systems in developing countries, with particular emphasis on low-income countries. It outlines the directions of reform that many low-income countries have followed, often on the advice of the IMF or the World Bank, and considers whether they are justified in...
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Tanzania has during the past years made substantial progress in stabilising the economy. One of the major issues has been to cut down on government activities and there has been a remarkable contraction. Although tax reform has been an important component in Tanzania’s economic reform programme the...
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