In the past, the Thai government usually ran a budget deficit. In recent years, the deficit has become a surplus. A continued high growth rate in the last three years produced an unexpected rise in tax revenues, and the growth of public spending was effectively controlled. The government has...

In many countries, well-meant ad hoc tax incentives proliferate over time, creating an opaque corporate tax structure and many unanticipated tax loopholes. Tax authorities in several countries have considered and sometimes introduced minimum corporate taxes. Liability under such a tax is...

The authors analyzed the experience of six countries (Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Portugal, Turkey, and Yugoslavia) and compared it with the experiences of Latin American countries. They conclude that some countries successfully absorbed the external shock of the 1980s by: (a) minimizing the...

Over the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven structural reform. The exchange rate depreciation that proved continually necessary...

This paper reviews the literature and country experience on the macroeconomics of fiscal policy in low income Africa. Given the experience of the 70's and 80's, the ultimate focus of the discussion must be the interaction of fiscal policy with the challenges of stabilization and structural...

The past two decades have seen an unparalleled rise in new health, safety, and environmental regulation in industrial countries. At the same time, insome countries there has been substantial economic deregulation of several industries (including airlines, railroads, trucking, energy,...

Despite decades of studies, tax incidence analyses for developing countries continue to be based on the same shifting assumptions used in developed country studies - despite obvious pitfalls. Taxes are assumed to be shifted forward to consumers or backward onto factor incomes. Developing...

Enthusiasts for financial sector tax reform typically come either with some form of"flat tax"(including value added tax on financial services, zero taxation on capital income, or a universal transactions tax) or advocating corrective taxes designed to offset market failures or achieve other...

The paper begins by outlining the major administrative and compliance issues of a cash flow tax. There are problems with the system because of the numerous possibilities for gaming the system. The paper goes on to discuss the problems involved in the transition from a corporate income tax to a...

The aim of this paper is to examine the implications for certain key macroeconomic variables in relation to reductions in public spending. In particular, the paper looks at; the rate of inflation, the interest rate, and the rate of growth of real GNP. The paper develops an intertemporal general...