The relatively slow pace of Nigeria's development has often been attributed to the phenomenon of the resource curse whereby the nature of the state as a"rentier"dilutes accountability for development and political actors are able to manipulate institutions to sustain poor governance. The impact...

With a focus on the institutional set-up and the political environment as central to understanding and rectifying the poor impact of mining on Ghana's economic development, this paper highlights the vulnerabilities in mining sector governance along the industry value chain. The authors explain...

This paper provides a pragmatic and objective diagnostic approach to the assessment of public investment management systems for governments. Since weaknesses in public investment management can negate the core argument that additional fiscal space allocated to public investments could enhance...

While debt-financed productive public investment raises a country’s debt ratios in the short run, it can also generate higher growth, revenues, and exports, leading over time to lower debt ratios. This paper develops a framework to assess whether countries meet the conditions for realizing the...

One of the important factors for economic development is the existence of an effective tax system. This paper deals with the concept and empirical estimation of countries'taxable capacity and tax effort. It employs a cross-country study from a sample of 110 developing and developed countries...

This paper proposes that, to increase the efficiency of public spending in oil-rich economies, some or all of the oil revenues be transferred to citizens, and fiscal instruments such as taxation be used to finance public expenditures. The authors develop the case as follows. First, they confirm...

An effective tax system is fundamental for successful country development. The first step to understand public revenue systems is to establish some commonly agreed performance measurements and benchmarks. This paper employs a cross-country study to estimate tax capacity from a sample of 104...