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Publications (54)
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– Simulating universal pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings in...
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– The impact of state ineffectiveness and political violence
The role of the state in promoting development is well established in the institutional economics literature. Yet, in recent decades the attention has been turned to the opposite side of the spectrum. Facing high levels of poverty and showing a slower progress in achieving development outcomes...
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– Method and evidence from micro-data
NOTE | Revised version May 2017 available. View and download the revised version. We use a global dataset with information on 210,000 corporations in 102 countries to investigate whether cross-border profit shifting by multinational firms is more prevalent in less developed countries. We propose a...
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In this paper we explore the income data in two surveys that underpin a South African tax-benefit microsimulation model. The simulated taxes and benefits using each dataset are compared with each other and with administrative data for a common time point. We explore discrepancies between the...
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Botswana’s welfare state is both a parsimonious laggard in comparison with some other middle-income countries in Africa (such as Mauritius and South Africa) and extensive (in comparison with its low-income neighbours to the north and east). Coverage is broad but cash transfers are modest. This...
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– The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme
This study presents an analysis of the electoral impacts of one of the most prominent conditional cash transfers in the world: Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. Using population censuses, and POP’s administrative records and elections data, we exploit the targeting criteria...
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– An overview of concepts, methods, and data sources
This paper offers a critical review of the methods used to estimate the extent of capital flight and illicit financial flows from developing countries. The largest estimates in the literature are based on imperfect methods with a great margin for error. Emerging new studies have built on approaches...
– Five key issues and solutions
Taxation, and public sector matters more generally, are high on the agenda for the international development community. This is clearly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG17 stipulates the need for improving domestic resource mobilization directly, and most of the other SDGs...
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– How data availability may hide the evidence
This study aims at providing causal evidence for tax-motivated profit-shifting out of developing countries, which, while often claimed to be the most affected, have been largely neglected in the literature. It uses global firm-level panel data from 2006–2015 and identifies profit-shifting through...
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– The role of decentralization
We examine the evolution of educational assistance in Indonesia, following two decades of government decentralization, and its effect on education quality. Using Indonesia Family Life Survey data, we exploit as exogenous rule the variation in the implementation of government decentralization to...
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– Evidence from Bangladesh
There are many studies on the effects of conditional cash transfer programmes on enrolment, productivity and poverty reduction but very few on causal effects on ages at marriage and first birth. And none of them considers the convergence effect. This paper provides new evidence on effects of the...
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Governments’ revenues are lower when multinational enterprises avoid paying corporate income tax by shifting their profits to tax havens. In this paper, we ask which countries’ tax revenues are affected most by this tax avoidance and how much. To estimate the scale of profit shifting, we start by...
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– A synthetic control approach
I examine impacts of general budget support in 12 countries using the synthetic control approach. First, I analyse changes in government expenditures on health before and after the introduction of budget support. Second, I look at neonatal mortality (a presumed proxy for improvements in health...
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This paper provides a broad picture of national, regional and global trends of inequality in length of life over the period 1950–2015. We use data on life tables from World Population Prospects to develop a comprehensive database of a battery of inequality measures for 201 countries at five-year...
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– Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Tanzania
Does self-serving elite behaviour make citizens more politically active? This paper presents the results of a randomized field experiment where voters in Tanzania were given information about elite use of tax havens. Information provided in a neutral form had no effect on voting intentions...
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Can a society suffering contests between rich and poor achieve good governance in the face of endemic corruption? We examine a stylized poor state with weak institutions in which a ‘culture of evasion’ damages state authority. Many evade tax payments, limiting the state’s economic development...
Displaying 16 of 54 results