This paper presents results from four simulations of the impact of potential tax reforms in Pakistan on poverty, shared prosperity, and inequality. The simulations are carried out in the context of a dynamic computational general equilibrium (CGE) model that incorporates endogenous tax evasion....

Despite multiple past efforts, fragile Sub-Saharan African economies such as those of Mali, Chad, Niger, and Guinea still rank among the least diversified worldwide, with natural resources constituting a high share of their gross domestic product or exports. Large-scale production of gold for...

In 1993, Colombia implemented an ambitious health reform. Its key component was a radical transformation of the manner in which health care provision, particularly care that was directed toward lower-income individuals, was financed. We first describe the institutional aspects of the reform and...

The landlocked and fragile countries Mali, Niger, and Chad have suffered, to varying degrees, from Dutch Disease, with high export concentration in natural resource commodities and in a few foreign markets, and little development of their non-resource economies. The three countries' ability to...

This policy paper explores the relative importance of the software regulatory barriers to growth in Pakistan. Such software barriers have been identified as part of the major constraint in the Framework for Economic Growth of the Government of Pakistan. Indeed, adequate software is needed to...

Costa Rica is well-known for its socio-economic achievements with low levels of poverty and inequality by Latin American standards. It also performs well in health, access to improved water supplies, suitable housing and other basic services, including electricity and sanitation, relative to...

Although the world witnessed an unprecedented pace of poverty reduction over the last decades, reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by more than 700 million, approximately 1.2 billion people remained entrenched in destitution in 2010. In order to leverage developing country...