This paper discusses the key sources of vulnerabilities for pension plans and insurance companies in light of the global financial crisis of 2008. It also discusses how these institutional investors transit shocks to the rest of the financial sector and economy. The crisis has re-ignited the...

The Chinese pension system is highly fragmented and decentralized, with governance standards, pension fund management practices, their regulation and supervision varying considerably both across the funded components of the Chinese pension system and across provinces. This paper describes the...

We compare the general tax provisions and investment incentives in the Philippines to six other east-Asian economies-Malaysia, Indonesia, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. We calculate effective tax rates and find that general effective tax rates are relatively high in the Philippines, while...

This paper considers two empirical questions about tax incentives: (1) are incentives used as tools of tax competition and (2) how effective are incentives in attracting investment? To answer these, we prepared a new dataset of tax incentives in over 40 Latin American, Caribbean and African...

Many developing economies are heavily exposed to commodity markets, leaving them vulnerable to the vagaries of international commodity prices. This paper examines the use of commodity options-including plain vanilla, risk reversal, and barrier options-to hedge such risk. It then proposes the use...

Do tax incentives for science and technology stimulate additional investment? We use detailed data on applications and acceptances for R&D tax incentives, a special survey, and for the first time, the science and technology module from the 2000-2002 Survey of Manufacturers database in Colombia...

We compare the general tax provisions and investment incentives in the Philippines to six other east-Asian economies-Malaysia, Indonesia, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. We calculate effective tax rates and find that general effective tax rates are relatively high in the Philippines, while...

This paper provides an updated overview of tax incentives for business investment. It begins by noting that tax competition is likely to be a major force driving countries' tax reforms, and discusses tax incentives as a possible response to this. This is complemented by other arguments for and...