This paper discusses the concepts of vertical fiscal imbalance (the fiscal gap) and horizontal fiscal imbalance (equalization) and uses several statistics to measure these concepts for eight industrially developed federations: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and...

Taxes matter. We all know we need them to pay for public services. But most of us complain about them -- exercise our "voice" -- and often try to dodge them -- to "exit" -- when we can. Those who design and implement tax systems, like those who try to escape them, for the most part consider...

In this paper we discuss some recent critical literature on VAT in developing countries relating to its revenue productivity, its equity, and its impact on the development of the formal economy. Illustrating our argument with reference to two recent country studies (of Ukraine and Jamaica) we...

In the first part of this paper we present a non-technical analysis of earmarking. We then briefly review some international experience with earmarking and its apparent results. The main new contribution of the paper is the concluding description and evaluation of the nature, efficacy, and...

We argue in this paper that unless China begins to tackle more systematically the serious problems that have emerged in the finances of its various levels of sub-national government the problems to which the present unsatisfactory system give rise will over time increasingly distort resource...

Fifty years of experience tells us that the right game for tax researchers and outside agencies interested in fostering better sustainable tax systems in developing countries researchers is not the short-term political game in which policy decisions are made. The right game for them is instead...

Although VATs applied simultaneously within the same country by different levels of government were long considered to be either undesirable or infeasible, two quite different types of sub-central VATs – regional consumption taxes and local business taxes -- now exist in a number of countries....

This paper reviews the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the decentralization of responsibility for the provision of infrastructure to local governments in low income countries. The focus is on structural rather than management issues. There is plenty of evidence that following the...

The most important tax development of the last half century has undoubtedly been the rise to prominence of the value-added tax (VAT).2 This tax has taken center stage almost everywhere (with the significant exception of the United States) and has become a revenue mainstay for many countries. The...

This paper is a non-technical discussion by an economist and lawyer, each with long international experience in taxation, of the constraints and objectives that in principle and practice shape tax policy design. After discussing the main factors traditionally taken into account by those charged...