This paper discusses the theory and practice of tax design to achieve an efficient and equitable outcome, i.e. in support of inclusive growth. It starts with a discussion of the key principles from tax theory to guide practical tax design. Then, it elaborates on more granular tax policy,...

To understand the cyclical movements of value-added tax (VAT) revenues in advanced economies, this paper analyzes changes in the C-efficiency ratio by decomposing it into changes in the compliance and policy gaps between 2000 and 2014. The results from a panel of EU member countries and Japan...

This paper assesses a possible explanation for the global downward trend in top personal income tax rates over the last decades: globalization and the related tax evasion and avoidance opportunities could have raised elasticities of taxable income, which would imply lower optimal tax rates. The...

The paper provides a critical review of the literature on the concept of progressivity in thetaxation of petroleum and mineral resources and offers a fresh perspective on its purpose andmeasurement. Regressive taxes, such as royalties, exist to satisfy policy objectives other thanrevenue...

Following renewed academic and policy interest in the destination-based principle for taxing profits-particularly through a destination-based cash flow tax (DBCFT)-this paper studies other forms of efficient destination-based taxes. Specifically, it analyzes the Destination-Based Allowance for...

Structural transformation has resulted in an increasing share of services in aggregate value-added in advanced and developing countries across the world. We analyze the impact of this shift into services on countries' efficiency in collecting the value-added tax (VAT). The analysis is based on...

We consider how fear of model misspecification on the part of the planner and/or the households affects welfare gains from optimal macroprudential taxes in an economy with occasionally binding collateral constraints as in Bianchi (2011). On the one hand, there exist welfare gains from...

This paper investigates the role that International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs and capacity building play in fostering structural reforms. To do so, we exploit two novel datasets on IMF capacity building and structural reforms available for over one hundred IMF member countries over the period...

The paper provides a detailed description of a novel dataset on education attainment in public administrations covering the period 1981-2011 for 178 countries. The dataset uses information extracted from CVs for over 130,000 mid to senior level officials from mainly central banks and ministries...

This paper studies the optimal public investment decisions in countries experiencing a resource windfall. To do so, we use an augmented version of the Permanent Income framework with public investment faced with adjustment costs capturing the associated administrative capacity as well as...