World Institute for Development Economics Research

About: World Institute for Development Economics Research is a facility organization based out in Helsinki, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 110 authors who have published 525 publications receiving 17316 citations.

Determinants of inflation in oil-exporting developing countries: an empirical investigation 1970–1990

Abstract: Hagen's analytical framework is modified to explain the unique characteristics of inflation in oil-rich Gulf countries. The inflationary pressure of imported inflation is reduced significantly by maintaining huge government subsidies. Although these instruments succeeded in the past two decades to keep inflation at the world's lowest rate, it is not likely that fiscal policy alone will curb inflation in the long run. The empirical evidence and the recent introduction of debt financing instruments reflect the growing importnance of monetary policy and in particular its lag effect on inflation. Its stimulative response remains second to imported inflation.

Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development

Abstract: This paper presents a synopsis of the contextual conditions, factors and challenges under which the recent evolution of tax systems has taken place over the past three decades. The paper gives especial emphasis to the role of natural endowments, political economy, social structure and history, and the interplay between politics and tax revenues. These are relevant issues, considering that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have placed fiscal policy, and tax policy and revenue mobilization in particular, at the centre of national and international development efforts. Delivering on the SDGs will require a level of state revenue mobilization capacity in many ways unprecedented in the history of development policy.

Optimal taxation and public provision for poverty reduction

Abstract: The existing literature on optimal taxation typically assumes there exists a capacity to implement complex tax schemes, which is not necessarily the case for many developing countries. We examine the determinants of optimal redistributive policies in the context of a developing country that can only implement linear tax policies due to administrative reasons. Further, the reduction of poverty is typically the expressed goal of such countries, and this feature is also taken into account in our model. We derive the optimality conditions for linear income taxation, commodity taxation, and public provision of private and public goods for the poverty minimization case and compare the results to those derived under a general welfarist objective function. We also study the implications of informality on optimal redistributive policies for such countries. The exercise reveals non-trivial differences in optimal tax rules under the different assumptions.

Measuring Agricultural Policy Bias: General Equilibrium Analysis of Fifteen Developing Countries

Abstract: The measurement issue is the key issue in the literature on trade policy-induced agricultural price incentive bias. This paper introduces a general equilibrium effective rate of protection (GE-ERP) measure, which extends and generalizes earlier partial equilibrium nominal protection measures. For the 15 sample countries, the results indicate that the agricultural price incentive bias, which was generally perceived to exist during the 1980s, was largely eliminated during the 1990s. The results also demonstrate that general equilibrium effects and country-specific characteristics – including trade shares and intersectoral linkages – are crucial for determining the sign and magnitude of trade policy bias. The GE-ERP measure is therefore uniquely suited to capture the full impact of trade policies on agricultural price incentives. A Monte Carlo procedure confirms that the results are robust with respect to tradability assumptions.