Indonesia’s growth performance is improving, following a slow recovery from the 1997-98 financial crisis. Investment is picking up, despite considerable business-climate obstacles to entrepreneurship. Unemployment remains high, and labour informality is pervasive. Fiscal policy has been...

This paper tests the hypothesis that, by giving people more voice in the government decision-making process, fiscal decentralisation fosters social capital, measured in terms of interpersonal trust. Empirical evidence based on World Values Survey data and seemingly unrelated probit estimations...

This paper tests for horizontal tax competition in the VAT for a sample of Brazilian states in the period 1985-2001. The states have considerable autonomy to set their VAT rates and bases, often using this tax as an industrial policy tool. The empirical findings, based on the estimation of a tax...

This paper reviews recent trends in fiscal performance in Brazil, estimates fiscal reaction functions for the consolidated public sector and different levels of government, and tests for the sustainability of the public debt dynamics. The empirical analysis, based on monthly data for the period...

There is a large literature on how the sharing of revenue between different levels of government and the design of intergovernmental transfer schemes affect sub-national finances. Using a panel of OECD countries during 1980-2005, this paper tests for: i) the presence of a stable long-run...

This paper develops a differential game of tax avoidance by modelling the interactions between a taxpayer and the tax authority. This framework is particularly useful for explicitly modelling situations of conflict. The solution to the game is a non-co-operative Nash that depends on the...

Compliance with the structural budget surplus rule, which has been in place since 2001, has allowed the government to maintain a counter-cyclical fiscal stance in an environment of rising copper prices, while delivering a gradual reduction in public indebtedness. Monetary policy is conducted...

Despite large differences across countries, Latin America’s average investment-to-GDP ratio and the overall quality of infrastructure in the region are relatively low by international comparison. Empirical evidence on the effects of fiscal decentralisation on investment based on a panel of...

The creation of new, sub-AVAs within Oregon’s Willamette Valley AVA may indicate a desire on the part of well-established wineries to “split” or separate their social grouping from those with lesser qualifications. Once their social cluster has been differentiated, we theorize that these...

Background: Heavy episodic (“binge”) drinking of alcohol has serious public health implications, especially for youth and young adults. However, previous reviews have failed to address in a comprehensive manner the effects of alcohol prices and taxes on binge drinking by gender and age...