This paper examines Sierra Leone’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Preparation Status Report. The government of Sierra Leone submitted its last PRSP preparation status report to the Executive Boards of the IMF and the World Bank in June 2003. However, the projected completion date...

Russia dramatically reduced its higher rates of personal income tax (PIT) in 2001 establishing a single marginal rate at the low level of 13 percent. In the following year, real revenue from the PIT actually increased by about 26 percent. This 'flat tax' experience has attracted much attention...

This paper examines the macroeconomic implications of life-cycle and dynastic saving behavior for closed and small, open economies. Using an extended version of Blanchard’s overlapping agents model, the analytical framework nests these two competing views, treating agents as either dynastic...

This paper presents estimates of the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries, which are derived by combining figures from different estimation methods. We describe and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different estimation methods. We find that the...

Although the empirical literature has long struggled to identify the impact of taxes on corporate financial structure, a recent boom in studies offers ample support for the debt bias of taxation. Yet, studies differ considerably in effect size and reveal an equally large variety in methodologies...

Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland face the serious challenge of adjusting not only to lower Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) transfers because of the global economic crisis, but also to a potential further decline over the medium term. This paper assesses options for the design of...

This paper studies a panel of China's provinces over the period 1996-2009 during which urban household saving rates increased from 19 percent of disposable income to 30 percent. It finds that the increase in urban saving rates is negatively associated with the decline in real interest rates over...

In this paper we empirically examine the operation of the traditional Keynesian interest rate channel of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in five potential inflation targeting economies in the MENA region and compare it with fourteen inflation targeting (IT) emerging market economies...

This paper explores the hypothesis that the propensity to consume out of income varies in a non-linear fashion with fiscal variables, and in particular with government debt per capita. Using data from eighteen OECD countries the paper examines whether there is any empirical evidence to support...

From 1995 to 2005, the average urban household saving rate in China rose by 7 percentage points, to ¼ of disposable income. We use household-level data to explain the postponing of consumption despite rapid income growth. Tracing cohorts over time indicates virtually no consumption smoothing...