The current account surplus of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has drawn much foreign and domestic attention. This paper focuses on the reasons and remedies for the PRC’s current account surpluses. Rather than deploying the standard explanations, we argue that asymmetric...

The current account surplus of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has drawn much foreign and domestic attention. This paper focuses on the reasons and remedies for the PRC’s current account surpluses. Rather than deploying the standard explanations, we argue that asymmetric...

This report is the result of a rapid assessment of the first phase of the direct cash transfer program that is one part of the fuel subsidy reduction compensation program that is provided to poor households. The early observation and assessment of the administration of this program was needed in...

This paper operationalizes Dahlby's (1998) theoretical analysis on the social marginal cost of public funds (SMCF) with microdata on Japanese prime-age males. Our exercise, however, is more than an application. First, we derive the formula for the SMCF that differentiates every individual....

Population growth rate matters for determining the optimal amount of capital in the context of dynamic inefficiency. From the aspect of social security, if there are pension schemes, individuals have no motive for having a child as income source for retirement periods. Thus, it is important to...

Income distributions for developing countries in Asia are modeled using beta-2 distributions, which are estimated by a method of moments procedure applied to grouped data. Estimated parameters of these distributions are used to calculate measures of inequality, poverty, and pro-poor growth in...

In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in...

When the labour supply is elastic with respect to the net wage, labour income taxation generates economic distortion and welfare loss. The substitute effect is a key determinant of the magnitude of such deadweight loss; thus, evaluating the elasticity of the labour supply has broad and...

When he labor supply is elastic with respect to the net wage rate, labor income taxation generates economic distortion and welfare loss. The substitute effect is a key determinant of the magnitude of such deadweight loss; thus, evaluating the elasticity of the labor supply has broad and...

Is household income enough for human development or should government direct resources towards the provision of social services to improve capabilities of individuals? The former is emphasised by the World Bank, and the latter by the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP). This paper tests...