This note describes how political economy analysis can be used to promote development, focusing specifically on state capture. It is intended to help practitioners within the World Bank execute and disseminate political economy analysis of state capture. It is not intended to be comprehensive...

This paper examines how providing better information to customs inspectors and monitoring their actions affects tax revenue and fraud detection in Madagascar. First, an instrumental variables strategy is used to show that transaction-specific, third-party valuation advice on a subset of...

To carry out their various missions (collecting revenue, facilitating trade, and ensuring security), many customs administrations have established a risk management unit. In developing countries, however, because of the lack of dedicated human and material resources, intelligence and risk...

Are politically connected firms more likely to evade taxes? This paper presents evidence suggesting firms owned by President Ben Ali and his family were more prone to evade import tariffs. During Ben Ali’s reign, evasion gaps, defined as the difference between the value of exports to Tunisia...

This paper examines public sector size and performance management in post-revolution Tunisia, drawing on macro-empirical, legal, and qualitative analyses. The paper first shows that public sector employment figures and the wage bill have increased significantly since the 2011 revolution, but...

Many investments in infrastructure are built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a comprehensive theoretical...

This paper draws lessons from an original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was subsidized over a six-month period over a distance of 20 kilometers to serve five villages....

Long cargo dwell times in ports are a critical issue in Sub-Saharan African countries since they result in slow import processes and are bound to dramatically reduce trade. The main objective of this study is to analyze long dwell times' causes in ports in Sub-Saharan Africa from a shipper's...

This paper estimates the volume of informal trade between Algeria and Mali and analyzes its determinants and mechanisms, using a multi-pronged methodology. First, the authors discuss how subsidy policies and the legal framework create incentives for informal trade across the Sahara. Second, the...

The report follows the diagnostic methodology as outlined in Rajaram et al. The diagnostics is based on interviews, a survey questionnaire with government officials, central statistical office (CSOs), and private sector and desk review of related documents. The paper identifies the weaknesses in...