Meeting government revenue needs without inhibiting private sector development is a key challenge of tax policy during the transition from the socialist system. The paper explores issues in the design of tax bases and tax structures in the transition and argues that transition economies would...

The paper provides three principal results. First, we benchmark South African infrastructure performance in terms of access, pricing, and quality against key comparator groups of countries using the most recent World Bank benchmarking data base (2005). Second, we establish clear empirical links...

The paper uses the 1992 household survey for Bulgaria to show poor revenue performance of the income tax structure prevailing in 1992, which did not take into account the underlying distribution of income. The paper shows that Bulgaria can benefit from a much lower and simpler income tax rate...

We examine the intertemporal allocation of the solid waste of cities within the United States to spatially distributed landfills and incinerators, taking into account that capacity at existing and potential landfills is scarce. Amendments have been proposed to restrict waste flows between states...

The note documents and discusses the modalities and consequences of the phenomenon of siphoning profits of state enterprises for private uses by state enteprise managers and insiders in Bulgaria during the period of early transition.

In a simple theoretical framework, the quality of institutions affects individual’s investment decisions, and hence income levels and distribution. When institutions deteriorates and inequalities increase, the incumbent undertakes redistributive taxation to maintain political support. The...

The purpose of this paper is to compare the different levels of tax rates on the use of the labour force in a range of OECD countries, using the methodology of effective marginal tax rates. Results for the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Japan, the United...

The United Kingdom began deregulating its electric market years before the U.S. Thus, the UK provides the best example of what can be expected in the deregulated residential retail electric market in the United States. . An extensive review of the evidence found: Questionable price savings:...

I investigate the idea that campaign spending limits may help to level the playing field in electoral competition between parties who have unequal access to campaign funds. The model assumes that the supporters of one party are on average wealthier than those who support a competing party....

In this contribution we illustrate various applications of a behavioural microsimulation model that we have been developing during the last years. Behavioural models are complex and costly tools to develop, use and maintain, but also very powerful ones as we wish to show through the examples...