Using a panel of administrative data and regression discontinuity analysis, this paper examines how the introduction of preferential tax regimes for Georgian micro and small businesses in 2010 affects formal firm creation and tax compliance. The results show that the new tax regime for micro...

How should developing countries tax corporate income? This paper studies this question in Costa Rica, where firms face discontinuously higher average tax rates on profits when their revenue marginally increases. The paper combines a discontinuity and a bunching design to estimate the profit...

The paper analyzes the design of simplified small business tax regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the impact of such regimes on small business tax compliance. Although many approaches for tax simplification exist, a general trend in the region is to offer small businesses the option...

An earlier paper titled "Non-linear effects of tax changes on output: The role of the initial level of taxation," estimated tax multipliers using (i) a novel dataset on value-added taxes for 51 countries (21 industrial and 30 developing) for the period 1970-2014, and (ii) the so-called narrative...

A revenue-neutral switch from trade taxes to domestic consumption taxes is fraught with implementation challenges in countries with a large informal sector. It is shown for a sample of low-income countries over 25 years that they have had a mixed record of offsetting reductions in trade tax...

This explores the impact of a tax reform in some provinces of China which eliminated the value-added tax on some investment goods. While the goal of the experiment was to encourage upgrading of technology, the results suggest that there was no evident increase overall in fixed investment, and...

This paper presents results from four simulations of the impact of potential tax reforms in Pakistan on poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality. The simulations are carried out in the context of a dynamic computational general equilibrium model that incorporates endogenous tax evasion. The...

The adoption of the value-added tax the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012 led to price increases that are thought to adversely affect the welfare of most Congolese households. To date, research has not yet examined the poverty and distributional impacts of this tax reform. Using data from the...

This paper analyzes the effects of the 2014-15 Chilean tax reform on firms' incentives to retain earnings and finance their operations with equity versus debt. The analysis comprises a comparison with the situation of the pre-reform period, and draws some conclusions about firms' valuation. The...

This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...