Against the background of a notoriously high macroeconomic instability and the need to raise tax revenues to meet the demands of public spending, this paper analyzes the tradeoff between growth and volatility of tax revenues in Latin America. We use a two-step Engle-Granger-type model to...

High natural resource prices in recent years have resulted in sizeable increases in fiscal revenue for many resource-exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this revenue source is volatile, and arguably these countries should also rely on other forms of taxation to help fund public...

This paper investigates how tax revenue elasticities develop with respect to their tax base and analyses the specific impact of the business cycle. The main novelty of the paper is to use revenue data net of discretionary tax measures. Based on an EU country panel for the period 2001-13, we...

This study discusses European Commission's recent proposal to combat VAT fraud by taxing intra-Community supplies at a common rate of 15%, accompanied by the internal correction of input-tax gap between an importer and his own national tax authority, which is caused by the national VAT rate...

Over the past decade, governments in the Caribbean region have introduced the value-added tax (VAT) to modernize their tax system, rapidly mobilize revenue and reduce budget deficits. This paper analyzes VAT performance in the region and concludes that while it has boosted revenues, the VAT has...

We use a dynamic small open economy model to explore the macroeconomic impact of alternative public investment scaling-up scenarios, analyzing how improving the efficiency of capital spending and of tax revenue collection affect growth and debt sustainability for three fast-growing Southeast...

How do countries mobilize large tax revenue-defined as an average increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio of 0.5 percent per year over three years or more? To answer this question, we build a novel dataset covering 55 episodes of large tax revenue mobilization in low-income countries and emerging...

This paper assesses whether conditionality in IMF-supported programs has helped offset the potential negative effect of foreign aid on tax revenues. The analysis - carried out on panel data covering 1993-2012 for 111 low- and middle-income countries - shows that growing use of revenue...

Foreign aid is a sizable source of government financing for several developing countries and its allocation matters for the conduct of fiscal policy. This paper revisits fiscal effects of shifts in aid dependency in 59 developing countries from 1960 to 2010. It identifies structural shifts in...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of how the frequency and severity of terrorism affectgovernment revenue and expenditure during the period 1970-2013 using a panel dataset on153 countries. We find that terrorism has only a marginal negative effect on tax revenueperformance, after...