The authors use a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the marginal cost of public funds (MCF) for taxes on domestic goods, exports, imports, capital, and labor in 38 African countries. The resulting MCF estimates provide directions for tax reform in Africa. The authors investigate...

The difficulties faced by many developing countries in raising revenue from direct taxes have forced them to rely heavily on indirect taxes to finance development interventions. The purpose of this paper is to show how to identify socially desirable options for commodity taxation in the context...

Can consumption taxes reduce inequality in developing countries? This paper combines household expenditure data from 31 countries with theory to shed new light on the redistributive potential and optimal design of consumption taxes. It uses the place of purchase of each expenditure to proxy for...

As crude oil prices reach new highs, there is renewed concern about how external shocks will affect growth and poverty in developing countries. This paper describes a macro-micro framework for examining the structural and distributional consequences of a significant external shock-an increase in...

The authors investigate the impact on economic growth and development of long-run movements in the external terms of trade, with special reference to the experience of 18 oil-exporting countries between 1973 and 1989. They argue that this sample approximates a controlled experiment for examining...

This study examines the major health, water, environmental, tourism and other welfare impacts associated with poor sanitation in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. By examining the economic impacts of poor sanitation, and the potential gains from improved sanitation, this study...

The world is witnessing a sudden growth in production of biofuels, especially those suited for replacing oil like ethanol and biodiesel. This paper synthesizes what the environmental, economic, and policy literature predicts about the possible effects of these types of biofuels. Another...

Many countries spend significant resources on investment promotion agencies in the hope of attracting inflows of foreign direct investment. Despite the importance of this question for public policy choices, little is known about the effectiveness of investment promotion efforts. This study uses...

Many recent papers have pointed to ambiguous trade effects of developing regional trade agreements (RTAs), calling for a reassessment of their economic merits. The author focuses on seven such agreements currently in force in Sub-Saharan Africa (ECOWAS and SADC), Asia (AFTA and SAPTA) and Latin...

All interested parties seem to agree that it is important to be able to monitor public sector performance at the sectoral level, but most current work based on multi-country databases does not lend itself to country-specific conclusions. This is due to a large extent to major data limitations...