India has a federal system of governance with both the state or provincial and the Central governments responsible for the development of the nation as a whole. Policies at the Central as well as state levels influence the state level variations in economic conditions in turn. It is in this...

This paper investigates the validity of the hypothesis that suggests there is a link between fiscal deficits and inflation in developing countries and further explores this link in the absence of public sector wage expenditure. Sri Lanka, a developing country with a persistent fiscal deficit, a...

This lecture deals not with the causes of the world financial crisis nor how to forecast or avoid one in the future, nor how to revive the financial sector, but rather with the crucial emergency "ambulance" policy of fiscal stimulus. What are the main effects of stimuli policies, and, in...

In 2009 the Australian government delivered approximately $8 billion in direct payments to households. These payments were pre- announced and randomly allocated to households based on postal codes over a 5-week period. We exploit this random allocation to estimate the causal response of...

This paper studies the interaction between capital income taxation and a means tested age pension in the context of an overlapping generations model, calibrated to the UK economy. Recent literature has suggested a rehabilitation of capital income taxation (Conesa et al. (2009)), predicated on...

We study the joint determination of fertility subsidies and Social Security taxes in an overlapping generations model where agents are heterogeneous in endowments. In equilibria where Social Security is valued, old and poor young agents form a coalition that sustains Social Security. When voting...

This paper presents a brief overview of the extant fiscal situation in South Asian countries. In particular, I emphasize low tax/GDP ratios and inelastic expenditure/GDP ratios which then lead to structurally entrenched fiscal deficits. The paper also reports on the sustainability of fiscal and...

This paper investigates the effects of taxation on migration. It develops a stylized, two-country model to examine the impact of taxation on labor mobility. The theoretical prediction that taxation affects migration decisions is supported by some empirical evidence for the ASEAN and APEC...

Both cross sectional and panel methods of analysis for Laos confirm that for public education and health services, the poorest quintile groups receive the smallest shares of total provision of these services. Nevertheless, poor groups’ shares of an increase in the level of provision...

The workfare scheme the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the direct food subsidy program the Targeted Public Distribution Scheme (TPDS) represent two alternative social safety nets instituted in India as anti-poverty measures. This paper examines whether from the point of...