Publications

Value added tax (VAT) is a major source of domestic revenue in low-income countries, typically accounting for more than one-third of total tax receipts. In Uganda, VAT reporting has traditionally relied on manual processes, making it difficult for tax authorities to verify transactions and detect...

Zambia is no stranger to extreme climate events. This policy brief examines how climate shocks in Zambia affect labour participation, household income, and food consumption, and whether these impacts differ by gender. In recent years, Zambia has experienced severe droughts, floods, and high...

A body of influential research indicates that taxation may produce a ‘governance dividend’, by enhancing state accountability, institutional quality, and public service provision. Indeed, developing effective tax systems—essential for financing development goals as recognised in SDG 17: Partnerships...

The need for developing countries to increase their domestic revenue is more urgent after the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely weakened public finances. This brief examines recent research showing that the implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) improves...

Firm tax compliance in Ghana is shaped by both the level of the tax burden and firms’ perceptions of fairness. Compliance initially actually increases with moderate tax increases, but once tax expenses exceed about 45% of a firm’s income—more specifically, around 30% for larger firms and up to 49%...

Zambia’s economy and food security rely heavily on farming that depends entirely on rainfall rather than irrigation, making rural households particularly vulnerable to increasingly frequent and severe droughts. Drought-related declines in agricultural income and consumption (household spending on...

Climate-related natural disasters are a major challenge for developing countries, where fiscal space is limited and climate risk is high. Their increasing frequency and severity, driven by climate change, causes substantial human and economic loss. According to one estimate, severe weather events...

The outbreak of armed conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014 triggered sweeping emergency measures and strained public trust in state institutions. Yet, instead of eroding democratic values, the violence revealed divergent effects: while citizens most affected by conflict lost confidence in...

Recent evidence from Uganda, the first of its kind in a lower-income sub-Saharan African (SSA) country, shows that greater income tax progressivity raised revenue and led to a small reduction in inequality. High earners did not lower their income to pay less tax following the reform, offering...

South Africa remains one of the most unequal countries in the world, with an income-based Gini coefficient of 0.65 (2020) and 30% of the population living below the lower-bound poverty line (ZAR 9,720 per year per person). Against this backdrop, the country’s tax system is an essential tool for...

Carbon pricing is a widely discussed tool, yet its implementation remains complex—particularly in developing economies. Policymakers must navigate both direct and indirect carbon pricing methods, each with its own set of challenges and implications.Carbon pricing instruments (policy tools used to...

Value-added tax (VAT) is an important source of revenue in sub-Saharan African countries. In fact, VAT revenues are approximately 30% of all revenue collected. Tanzania introduced VAT in 1998 to replace a sales tax. The VAT sought to address inefficiencies in tax revenue collection from non...

Indonesia’s rise as a global player in nickel processing is a striking example of how industrial policy can drive economic transformation in resource-rich countries. Three key factors drove the industrial transformation of Indonesia’s nickel-resource sector. First, state activism through export...

Pension fund coverage in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is low, with only 6.1% of the working-age population and just 8.9% of the labour force contributing to a pension, significantly lower than global averages of 32.5% and 53.7%, respectively. A recent study analyses information on pension fund coverage...

For many Global South countries, social protection is rigid, inadequate and sometimes ineffective. Accounting for crises in the design of tax and benefit policies to protect the vulnerable during economic crises is a challenge for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This brief summarizes...

What happens to jobs when a country is cut off from the global economy? Our study investigates how international economic sanctions influence labour markets, focusing on the shift from formal to informal employment. By analysing the case of Iran following the 2012 sanctions, we demonstrate that...