Ghana’s macroeconomic outlook is positive, and the medium-term policy stance is appropriate. On the fiscal side, the government plans to scale up infrastructure investment and further boost revenues. A revised debt sustainability analysis suggests scope for higher nonconcessional...

"This volume provides the most comprehensive estimates of worldwide energy subsidies currently available, drawing on data from 176 countries in the areas of petroleum products, natural gas, coal, and electricity. It lays out an analysis of "how to do" energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights...

Energy subsidies have wide-ranging economic consequences. While aimed at protecting consumers, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd-out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. Subsidies also distort resource allocation by encouraging...

This supplement presents country case studies reviewing energy subsidy reform experiences, which are the basis for the reform lessons identified in the main paper. The selection of countries for the case studies reflects the availability of data and of previously documented evidence on...

This background paper describes five different tools that can be used for the assessment of tax incentives by governments in low income countries' (LICs). The first tool (an application of cost-benefit analysis) provides an overarching framework for assessment. Evaluations of the various costs...

Experience shows that there is often ample room for more effective and efficient use of investment tax incentives in low-income countries. Tax incentives generally rank low in investment climate surveys in low-income countries, and there are many examples in which they are reported to be...

There are few areas of economic policy-making in which the returns to good decisions are so high-and the punishment of bad decisions so cruel-as in the management of natural resource wealth. Rich endowments of oil, gas and minerals have set some countries on courses of sustained and robust...

This paper reviews recent experience of technical assistance on tax policy provided by the Fiscal Affairs Department to a selected but diversified group of countries that differ both in their geographical locations and in the nature of their economies. The review finds in the technical...

This paper tests a version of Barro’s tax-smoothing model, which assumes intertemporal optimization by a government seeking to minimize the distortionary costs of taxation, using Pakistan and Sri Lankan data for 1956-95 and 1964-97, respectively. The empirical results indicate that...

This paper develops and calibrates a simple general equilibrium model with two types of labor and capital for the French economy. The simulation results indicate that targeted reductions in employer social security taxes have six times as large an effect on employment as untargeted reductions...