Covid-19 pandemic has shown how important are public sector capacities and capabilities to react to crises and re-configure existing policies and implementation practices. Prior to the pandemic, policymakers were increasingly turning their attention to challenge-driven innovation policies in...

We study management practices and performance in a representative sample of German municipalities, which provide the bulk of direct administrative services for citizens and firms in Germany. Surveyed municipalities differ substantially in their use of structured management practices, and this...

As regulators, central banks can play a stabilising role, using prudential regulation to ensure financial system stability, and a transformative role, using regulation to promote financial system development and so encourage financial deepening and inclusion. While there are strong arguments for...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, empirically, state fragility – con­ceptualised as a multi-dimensional phenomenon along the categories of authority, capacity and legitimacy – comes in several distinct configurations, yet that the number of such configurations is rather...

To avoid irreversible damage to global ecosystems, new “green” technologies are needed. Some of those are still far from commercial maturity. In such cases, governments may create temporary rents to make investments “artificially” attractive. The creation of such rents, however, involves...

The debate on results-based aid (RBA) differs from debates so far in as much as in practice, aid has been mainly inputs and progress-oriented. RBA aims to identify outputs or outcomes that can be measured and quantified, i.e. results that can be directly linked to development activities. The key...

Revenue structures vary strongly among developing countries. Most approaches to tax performance fail to give insights into this puzzle. I argue that much of the answer lies in the political dimension and highlight the willingness of elites to pay taxes as the most crucial factor. In contrast to...