Revenue reforms can contribute to more inclusive, green, and sustainable growth in China. Relative to OECD economies, fiscal policy in China is less redistributive. Options for promoting more inclusive growth include improving the progressivity of labor taxes (individual income tax and social...

This paper is intended to clarify the contribution of macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment to the transformation from plan to market in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Four main points emerge. First, increased price stability improves the utilization of capital and...

Bureaucratically organized systems tend to be less efficient than economies in which agents are free to choose their output targets, as well as the means to meet them. This paper presents a simple model of planner-manager interactions and shows how bureaucratic economies can end up in a...

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are present in key sectors of the economies around the world. While they can provide an important public service, there is widespread concern that their activities are negatively affected by corruption. However, there is limited cross-country analysis on the costs...

Based on a permanent income analysis, Gagnon (2018) has prominently suggested that Norwayhas saved too much, thereby free-riding on the rest of the world for demand. Our public sectorbalance sheet analysis comes to the opposite conclusion, chiefly because it also accounts forfuture aging costs....

We present a new index of social unrest based on counts of relevant media reports. The index consists of individual monthly time series for 130 countries, available with almost no lag, and can be easily and transparently replicated. Spikes in the index identify major events, which correspond...

This study investigates the effect of gender budgeting in India on gender inequality and fiscal spending. Gender budgeting is an approach to budgeting in which governments use fiscal policies and administration to address gender inequality and women's advancement. There is little quantitative...

There is a widespread perception that trust and social capital have declined in United States as well as other advanced economies, while income inequality has tended to increase. While previous research has noted that measured trust declines as individuals become less similar to one another,...

This paper surveys European gender budgeting efforts, which have enjoyed sustained support for more than a decade and a half. In a number of countries, gender budgeting led to significant changes in budget legislation and administrative practices. In some countries, it is also possible to tie...