Because of the presumed guns vs. butter trade-off, defense expenditures in developing countries are coming under increased scrutiny from the international lending agencies as well as key donors. As a result, defense expenditure cuts have often taken place despite rising security concerns....

The theoretical and policy literature on decentralization has long asserted since Oates (1972) that decentralized governance increases allocative efficiency in the public sector. But, despite the colossal growth in the literature on decentralization and fiscally decentralized systems in the real...

We examine the impact of civil war on democratization. Using a theoretical bargaining model, we hypothesize that prolonged violence, war termination, the presence of natural resources, and international intervention influence democratization. We test these hypotheses using an unbalanced panel...

In the first decade that the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia transitioned toward freer markets, measured income inequality increased. Because this contradicted previous models of inequality, researchers linked the increase in inequality to a supposed equality under...

The last decade has been witness to one of the largest tax experiments in economic history: the transformation from centrally-planned to market-based tax systems. The cultural and institutional legacy of central planning has had a lasting impact on tax reform in countries in transition. The...