Coinage debasement in medieval and early modern Europe remains an ill-understood topic; and indeed an often cited article ("The Debasement Puzzle": Velde and Weber, 1996) sought to demonstrate that coinage debasements were both impractical and economically futile. The purpose of this study is to...

Nonpayment for public utilities is an important constraint to expanding service access in developing countries. As a potential policy response, this study implements and evaluates a randomized water education campaign in a low income peri-urban area in South Africa. We estimate substantial...

This paper studies the evolution of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), tracing it from its inception in 1889 as the Customs Union Convention, the world’s first customs union, to its current status. While the union has operated under different agreements, which have been negotiated...

A recent controversial move by the Indian income tax authorities was the introduction of a fringe benefits tax (FBT) in 2005. Its introduction has been justified on the grounds that it taxes fringe benefits which are collectively enjoyed by employees and are in the form of facilities and...

The 2014 This report on Tax Reforms in EU Member States presents an overview of the reforms recently introduced by Member States in the main areas of tax policy and provides up-to-date analysis of the main challenges in each area. It also includes an indicator-based assessment, which gives an...

This paper reviews the tax reforms implemented by EU Member States since the adoption of the first country-specific recommendations in the framework of the Europe 2020 strategy. Even though there is a need for more action, as evidenced by the number of tax recommendations, overall many Member...

The problem of taxation, in a social system the trade-off Equity vs Efficiency. Is it possible a reconciliation?

Article about the problems of municipal governments related to fiscal consolidation in the Russian regions and the construction of the vertical of power during the first presidency of Vladimir Putin. The author analyzes the impact of the decline of the financial base of the city governments and...

This paper describes an alternative way (other than taxation) to eliminate poverty and unemployment from the world. This is done by creating a single money worldwide, and letting each government subsidize the economy of each country, through acting as a non-profit venture capital subsidizer, by...

This Working Paper contains some observations concerning the evolution of trade and trade-related policies in the Asia-Pacific region since the establishment in 1989 of the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), whose goal is to improve the transparency of these policies. It also draws some...