We examine the impact of geo-referenced World Bank development programs on subnational development using equally sized grid cells with a spatial resolution of 0.5 decimal degrees latitude x longitude as the unit of investigation. The proposed grid cell approach solves a number of endogeneity...

Using iterative experiments to uncover causal links between critical policy details and outcomes helps to optimize policy design. This paper studies a large-scale staged fiscal stimulus program conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which a provincial government in China disbursed digital...

Die unverändert geringe Wirtschaftskraft, die Steuerprogression und die geltenden Zerlegungsregeln sind die Kernursachen der niedrigen Steuerkraft in Ostdeutschland. Dies geht aus einer Studie der Dresdner Niederlassung des ifo Instituts im Auftrag des Sächsischen Staatsministeriums der...

Official estimates of the budgetary effects of proposed federal legislation generally exclude behavioral responses that would have macroeconomic effects. In my view, including such effects — an approach known as “dynamic scoring” — in estimates for certain proposals would improve the...

Given the connectedness of most states with their neighbors, any economic analysis of changes in a state's policy needs to account for the interdependence between states. We examine in how much detail one needs to model the factor and commodity flows between states, and how much, if anything, is...

We examine firm responses to location-based hiring subsidies. We leverage institutional features of the California Competes Tax Credit (CCTC), a large-scale business incentive program that incorporates best practices from prior job creation policies. The CCTC award selection procedure combines...

The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing economic and broader development challenges as never before. Policy lessons from Asia and the Pacific's past experience in dealing with shocks show that focusing on economic growth alone is not enough. Rising inequality and environmental challenges increased the...

This paper estimates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession on Korea's regional economies. It finds that the recession has hit the island province of Jeju and the cities of Incheon and Ulsan the hardest, in that order. For Jeju in particular, it was estimated that the province’s...

This paper empirically studies the impact of decentralization on foreign aid effectiveness. For this purpose, we examine a commonly used empirical growth model, considering aid modality as well as different measures of political and fiscal decentralization. Our panel estimations reveal that...