Standard models of fiscal federalism suggest many benefits of decentralization in developing economies, and there has been a recent push toward decentralization around the world. However, developing countries presently still have less decentralization, particularly on the revenue side, than both...

Ration shop systems allow households to purchase limited quantities of some commodities at a fi xed subsidized price and are in widespread use throughout the developing world. I construct a model of piece-wise increasing commodity taxation to consider whether the use of ration shops can be...

Ration shop systems allow households to purchase limited quantities of some commodities at a fi xed subsidized price and are in widespread use throughout the developing world. I construct a model of piece-wise increasing commodity taxation to consider whether the use of ration shops can be...

Do tax systems distort firm-to-firm trade? This paper considers the effect of tax policy on supplier networks in a large developing economy, the state of West Bengal in India. Using administrative panel data on firms, including transaction data for 4.8 million supplier-client pairs, we first...

Can consumption taxes reduce inequality in developing countries? We combine household expenditure data from 31 countries with theory to shed new light on the redistributive potential and optimal design of consumption taxes. We use the place of purchase of each expenditure to proxy for informal...

This paper investigates the effect of electronic payments technology on firms' tax compliance in a large developing economy. We consider India's demonetization policy which, by limiting the availability of cash, led to a large increase in the use of electronic forms of payments. Using...