This paper studies the relationship between trade tax and domestic tax reforms and poverty in developing countries, and explores whether the role of public goods provision matters in this relationship. Using a sample of 91 developing countries for the 1980-2016 period, I model the trade tax...

Given the rise in the government debt level in recent times, this paper aims to examine the effect of an increase in government size on risk premium and its transmission in the economy. We jointly identify the term spread shock (originating at the short end and the long end) and the government...

It is widely believed that clientelism-the giving of material goods in return for electoral support-is associated with poorer development outcomes. However, systematic cross-country evidence on the deleterious effects of clientelism on development outcomes is lacking. In this paper we examine...

To date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics-the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime-and proposes a theoretical framework outlining how forms of wartime...

Countering recent rises in many countries of inequality in income and wealth is widely recognized as a major development challenge. This is so from an ethical perspective and because greater inequality is perceived to be detrimental to key development aims. Still, an informed debate on the...

This paper investigates the linkage between social protection and economic resilience. Does social protection have an impact on income? What role do social protection policies play in strengthening a society's capacity to overcome economic hardships? The recent crisis has brought these questions...

Debt-financed fiscal stimulus programmes directly stimulate aggregate demand through government expenditure or tax cuts, but their effectiveness is highly dependent on direct crowding out of private sector expenditure, spillover effects to the private sector through a higher risk premium on...

A dynamic relationship between foreign aid and domestic fiscal variables in Uganda is analysed using a cointegrated vector autoregressive model over the period 1972-2008. Results show that aid is a significant element of long-run fiscal equilibrium, is associated with increased tax effort and...

Much of the research on fiscal multipliers has used reduced form modelling approaches. While these models have been extended to include richer controls and identification approaches, it remains unclear whether shocks identified capture the true structural shocks. An alternative way to identify...

The prescription of optimally managing natural resource revenue windfalls by smoothing consumption across generations using an intergenerational sovereign wealth fund that only invests in foreign assets is not appropriate for resource-rich developing economies. It is better for these economies...