In this chapter I provide an overview of the political economy of taxation in democratic states by considering the three most important issues in the field: (1) the evolution of the power to tax in (what are now) the mature constitutional democracies; (2) the nature and determinants of modern...

This paper investigates economic and political determinants of protection across the secondary (manufacturing) sector. Economic factors can be summarized by the infant industry argument and we expect industries which are relatively efficient compared to the rest-of-the-world to have low levels...

This paper investigates the link between published tariff rates and realized tariff rates using Indian inter-industry manufacturing sector data over three Plan periods. Understanding this link is important as economies liberalize trade and must deal with the potential revenue shortfalls: if the...

In this paper I test two models of strategic debt behavior. The general idea is that if a government anticipates the possibility of defeat in the next election it will try to use the debt strategically in order to influence the policy of its successor. Previous empirical studies have either...

In actual environmental policy, the design of actual pollution emission taxes differs significantly with the optimal Pigovian tax. In particular, earmarking prevails and actual taxes are usually combined with regulation. Furthermore tax rates are generally too low to significantly influence...

This paper develops a standard model of international trade and makes three contributions. First, it shows that when the welfare function of the recipient country reflects the utility of natives, freetrade and free-migration generate isomorphic results, that is, they increase overall welfare but...

We conduct an incentive-theoretical analysis of political economy considerations in the design of social protection programmes in developing countries to accompany economic reforms. We focus on two aspects of social protection - the provision of redistribution and retraining - that arguably...

The study focuses on the political economy of oil resources management in Nigeria with the sole purpose of showcasing how far the country has gone in effectively managing its crude oil proceeds. It presents a brief history on the excess crude account as well as the sovereign wealth fund in...

Although the application of the conceptual and analytical framework of economics to the study of populism is still in its infancy, great advances have been made in recent years. This paper reviews some key contributions behind this progress. When analyzing populism, economists face two...