This paper presents estimates of the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries, which are derived by combining figures from different estimation methods. We describe and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different estimation methods. We find that the...

In recent years the level of taxation of many developing countries has changed dramatically over relatively short periods. These changes are too large and too sudden to attribute fully to a deterioration in tax administration or to changes in the traditional determinants of tax levels. The paper...

We quantitatively investigate the macroeconomic and distributional impacts of fiscal consolidations in low-income countries (LICs) through value added tax (VAT), personal income tax (PIT), and corporate income tax (CIT). We extend the standard heterogeneous agents incomplete markets model by...

In theory, one of the main benefits of financial globalization is that it should allow for more efficient international risk sharing. This paper provides a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the patterns of risk sharing among different groups of countries and examines how international...

The previous literature points to a high correlation between domestic rates of investment and savings among OECD countries. Some take this as evidence of limited financial integration in the industrialized world. This paper presents new empirical results, based on an extended sample of...

Corruption, particularly political or “grand” corruption, distorts the entire decision-making process connected with public investment projects. The degree of distortions is higher with weaker auditing institutions. The evidence presented shows that higher corruption is associated with (i)...

This paper suggests that the environmental and commercial features of shale gas extraction do not warrant a significantly different fiscal regime than recommended for conventional gas. Fiscal policies may have a role in addressing some environmental risks (e.g., greenhouse gases, scarce water,...

The paper provides estimates of the long-run, tax-adjusted, user cost elasticity of capital (UCE) in a small open economy, exploiting three sources of variation in Canadian tax policy: across provinces, industries, and years. Estimates of the UCE with Canadian data are less prone to the...

This paper investigates the impact of taxation on firm survival, using hazard models and a large-scale panel dataset on over 4 million nonfinancial firms from 21 countries over the period 1995-2015. We find ample evidence that a lower level of effective marginal tax rate improves firms' survival...

This paper compares the effective rates of taxation faced by a representative investor located in a major capital-exporting country for investments in machinery and buildings in nine capital-importing European countries. Poland and Hungary are found to have relatively high effective tax rates on...