This short dissemination note provides a synthesis of key results from a recent study on access to infrastructure services in Africa. Using Demographic and Health Surveys from 22 countries that have conducted at least two such surveys between 1990 and 2005, we provide comparable estimates over...

This report reviews recent trends in household access to infrastructure services and associated budgetary expenditures in Africa. It is based on a pooled database that draws upon the entire body of household surveys conducted in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 15 years.

Interprovincial trade barriers are a drag on Canadian productivity and send an embarrassing message to international investors.Despite some past progress in reducing them, they remain an irritant to our economic union. Trade liberalization as pursued by Alberta and British Columbia in the TILMA...

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa are confronted with the need to raise tax revenues in order to be able to provide a range of services to their populations. Yet taxes and other government revenues as a proportion of GDP are lowest in the poorest countries that need to expand their services...

Governments in low-income countries have the difficult task of making wide-ranging decisions about public spending, taxation, and borrowing with the aim of helping their countries maintain long-term debt sustainability, achieve higher economic growth, and ultimately reduce poverty. Making such...

A sustainable debt is a precondition for sustainable development. Yet the analysis of a country’s debt sustainability is a complex task given issues related to (1) establishing the actual debt outstanding and future debt-service obligations; (2) defining appropriate sustainability indicators;...

This paper provides an interpretive synopsis of the results of a conference on inflation-induced distortions in financial reporting and taxation held in October 1981 at the height of the post-war inflation. It provides analysis of the magnitudes of the likely distortions in reporting and...

One of the most difficult tasks in preparing a poverty reduction strategy consists in setting priorities for public action, taking into account the cost of social programs and the capacity of the government to pay that cost. The ability to pay for social programs is determined by the resources...

This paper reviews the issues that would arise if Quebec were to separate from Canada. It also presents quantitative estimates of the likely orders of magnitude of their economic impact both on Quebec and the Rest of Canada. Its overall conclusion is that Quebec would be much harder hit than the...

This paper argues that the two-percentage point cut in the GST to 5 per cent proposed by the Conservatives in the January 2006 Canadian federal election and implemented in the 2007 budget was not “stupid” as suggested by many economists. To the contrary, it fortuitously turned out to provide...