This paper analyses the international dimension of fiscal policy using a small open economy framework in which the government finances its spending by levying distortionary taxation and issuing non-state-contingent debt. The main finding of the paper is that, once the open economy aspect of the...

In the tax literature, the tax effort index for any country is usually measured by the ratio of the actual tax ratio to the predicted ratio. This reflects mainly the variance in the taxable capacity of a country. A high value of tax effort index indicates that a particular country is collecting...

What is the level of state capacity in developing countries today, and what have been its drivers over the past century? We construct a comprehensive new dataset of tax and revenue collection for 46 African polities from 1900 to 2015. Descriptive analysis shows that many polities in Africa have...

An establishment can improve its productivity by hiring workers from more productive establishments. Then, how important is worker reallocation for aggregate productivity growth? To study this question, I develop a general equilibrium model where knowledge transmits as workers reallocate from...