How can the impact of aid be estimated in the presence of fungibility? And how far does fungibility reduce its benefits? These questions are analyzed in a context where a donor wants to target its efforts on a specific sector and specific geographic areas. A traditional...

This paper examines historically the World Bank's twin features: lending to developing economies to achieve tangible results and advocating specific development policies. Section 1 provides some conceptual underpinnings for the view that an effective state is essential for development. It asks...

This paper assesses whether the level of taxation of motor fuel is broadly appropriate in a group of countries (OECD, BRICs and South Africa) accounting for more than 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis deals with emissions from oil combustion in transport, which account...

We use 201,000 observations from repeated survey data in 61 elections and 9 OECD countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choices and policy preferences in the electoral season and assess how TV debates contribute to this process. We find that the share of voters who state a...

This paper shows that general equilibrium effects can partly rationalize the high correlation between saving and investment rates observed in OECD countries. We find that once controlling for general equilibrium effects the saving-retention coefficient remains high in the 70's but decreases...