This paper surveys fiscal policy in developing countries from the point of view of long-run growth. The first section reviews existing methodologies to estimate the effects of fiscal policy shocks and of systematic fiscal policy, with time series or with cross-sectional methods, and their...

This paper uses a novel loan-level dataset covering lending by official creditors to developing country governments to construct an instrument for public spending that can be used to estimate government spending multipliers. Loans from official creditors (primarily multilateral development banks...

In response to the Great Recession of 2008, many national governments implemented fiscal stimuli packages in 2009 and 2010 to prevent further declines in aggregate demand and to jump start their economic recovery. Where subnational governments responded with fiscal contraction, as in the United...

This report analyzes the distributional impacts of the main taxes and transfers on households' welfare in the West Bank and Gaza. The analysis uses the Commitment to Equity methodology, enabling comparison of the results to other countries where this framework has been applied. The report...

Political economy explanations for fiscal profligacy are dominated by models of bargaining among organized interest groups over group-specific targeted benefits financed by generalized taxation. These models predict that governments consisting of a coalition of political parties spend more than...

This study uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze various policy scenarios for a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum fuels and kerosene in Ethiopia. The carbon tax starts at $5 per ton of carbon dioxide in 2018 and rises to $30 per ton in 2030. Different...

Using a new, large data set on quarterly reserve requirements for the period 1970-2011, this paper provides new evidence on the use of reserve requirements as a countercyclical macroprudential tool in developing countries. The appeal of reserve requirements lies in the pro-cyclical behavior of...

A model of firm innovation illustrates the effects of the threat of imitation and product varieties on a representative firm's decision to invest in research and development to produce new product varieties. The model motivates two empirical questions: (1) Is research and development partially...

This paper explores endogenous institution formation under a catching-up strategy in developing countries. Since the catching-up strategy is normally against the compartive advantages of the developing countries, it can not be implemented through laissez-faire market mechanisms, and a government...