Issues of taxation and development, which have long been a central concern of the IMF, have attracted wider and renewed interest in the last few years. This paper reflects on three broad lessons of experience: that developing countries differ vastly in tax matters, and in ways that are less than...

We present a simple model of petroleum exploration and development that can be applied to study the performance of alternative tax systems and identify potential distortions. Although the model is a highly simplified, it incorporates many factors and some of the key tradeoffs that would...

High natural resource prices in recent years have resulted in sizeable increases in fiscal revenue for many resource-exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, this revenue source is volatile, and arguably these countries should also rely on other forms of taxation to help fund public...

Owing to the deteriorating economy of Guatemala, authorities requested a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) with access of SDR 630.6 million in April 2009, which aimed at safeguarding macroeconomic and financial stability and anchoring investor confidence. Executive Directors have agreed that the SBA is...

I quantify the welfare effects of replacing the US capital income tax with higher labor income taxes under international financial integration using a two-country, heterogeneous-agent incomplete markets model calibrated to represent the US and the rest of the world. Short-run and long-run factor...

This paper explores the effects of an environmental tax reform on pollution, economic growth and welfare in an endogenous growth model with pre-existing tax distortions. We find that a shift in the tax mix away from output towards pollution may raise economic growth through two channels. The...

A major constraint on trade liberalization in many countries is the prospective loss of government revenue.Recent results, however, have established a simple and appealing strategy for overcoming this difficulty, whilst still realizing the efficiency gains from liberalization, in small,...

In exploring the impact of tax policy on labor-market performance, the paper first investigates how tax reform impacts labor supply and equilibrium unemployment in representative agent models.The impact of tax policy on labor market performance depends importantly on various other labor-market...

We use a Computable General Equilibrium model to simulate the effects of an Environmental Tax Reform in a regional economy (Andalusia, Spain).The reform involves imposing a tax on CO2 or SO2 emissions and reducing either the Income Tax or the payroll tax of employers to Social Security, and...

This paper explores how revenue-neutral tax reforms impact employment and economic growth in a model of endogenous growth and search frictions on the labor market. We analyze how savings and the incentive to create new jobs are affected by tax swaps between wage income taxes, payroll taxes,...