"Political economy explanations for fiscal profligacy are dominated by models of bargaining among organized interest groups over group-specific targeted benefits financed by generalized taxation. These models predict that governments consisting of a coalition of political parties spend more than...

"The fact that raising taxes can increase taxed labor supply through income effects is frequently used to justify much lower measures of the marginal welfare cost of taxes and greater public good provision than indicated by traditional, compensated analyses. The authors confirm that this...

"Tax expenditures, in the form of tax provisions, are government expenditures. They are conceptually and functionally distinct from those tax provisions whose purpose is to raise revenue. Tax expenditure programs are comparable to entitlement programs. Therefore, tax expenditures must be...

"Using data collected during several missions, Zafar finds that the principal reasons for low revenue mobilization are (1) the adverse fiscal impact of trade liberalization, (2) the defiscalization of agriculture in the 1970s, (3) the collapse of the uranium boom in the 1980s, and (4) the poor...

This report consists of two volumes. Volume I examines whether, and how, the core goals of public expenditure management, i.e., balanced fiscal aggregates, resource allocations to strategic sectors, and equity and microeconomic efficiency of public spending are met in Ecuador. Volume II presents...