This paper examines the environmental effects of mineral taxes in a framework that recognizes the importance of rates and cumulative externalities and proposes an appropriate corrective tax. It concludes that mineral resources taxation should combine neutral taxes with a dynamic Pigovian type...

Commonly cited environmental instruments in the legal, regulatory, and fiscal domains are intended primarily to address market failures to ensure that environmental degradation and resource use is contained to appropriate levels. However, in many instances, environmental degradation is rooted...

This paper examines the role and impact of taxation on sustainable forest management. It is shown that fiscal instruments neither reinforce nor substitute for traditional regulatory approaches. Far from encouraging more sustainable forest management, fiscal instruments such as an inappropriate...

The paper studies the setting of optimal fiscal policy in a second-best world with environmental externalities. The optimal second-best pollution tax is shown to lie below the first-best Pigovian tax, particularly if substitution between labor and polluting intermediate inputs is easy, the labor...

This paper focuses on the Medium-Term Development Program for the Kyrgyz Republic. The aim of this program is to put the economy of the country into a sustainable vector of development and improve the budget status to prevent social effects, increase living standard, and reduce poverty in the...

Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy provides a medium-term framework for achieving the country’s long-term development goals and aspirations as embodied in Rwanda Vision 2020, the seven-year Government of Rwanda programme, and the Millennium Development...

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) on the Republic of Madagascar explain the Madagascar Action Plan (MAP) to accelerate and better coordinate the development process. The National Leadership Institute of Madagascar (NLIM) was created in 2006 to provide cutting-edge training to build...

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper II (PRSP-II) examines the major development challenges faced by Burundi. The paper identifies achievements in areas such as security and governance, but draws attention to the below-par performance in overall economic growth and development. The primary...

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are prepared by member countries in broad consultation with stakeholders and development partners, including the staffs of the World Bank and the IMF. Updated every three years with annual progress reports, they describe the country’s...

This paper describes the Kingdom of Lesotho’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) 2012/13–2016/17. NSDP recognizes, as a point of departure, the need and urgency for Lesotho to radically transform its economy. To achieve the National...