Using a new tax database for 28 countries and a variety of econometric methods, this paper contributes to the debate on the effects of fiscal policy on economic activity in a number of ways. The analysis finds that tax cuts have a stimulative effect on economic growth in developing countries....

Both conventional wisdom and leading academic research view pork barrel spending as antithetical to responsible policymaking in times of crisis. In this paper we present an alternative view. When agents are heterogeneous in their ideology and in their information about the economic situation,...

The US economy is still suffering from its most severe recession in seven decades. In the first of a series of US Election Analyses, Ethan Ilzetzki covers the key issue of taxes, spending and public debt, a major point of disagreement between the two candidates, President Obama and Governor Romney.

The latest economic growth figures confirm that the UK economy is slowly recovering from the deep recession of 2008/09. But according to researchers at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), the recovery will probably continue to be slow, and there is still no sign of a significant reversal...

Investments in fiscal capacity?economic institutions for tax compliance?are an important feature of economic development. This paper develops a dynamic model to study the evolution of fiscal capacity over time. We contrast a social planner's investment path with politically feasible paths. Three...