Institutionalized conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs may affect important aspects of pre-existing, informal safety nets such as inter-household transfers and trust among community members. We use a randomized controlled trial to test the impact of CCTs on various measures of trust and informal...

We construct a novel database covering more than 450 fiscal consolidation episodes in 185 countries during the period 1979-2019. Using discrete choice models, we then examine the (broader macroeconomic and political) factors motivating these fiscal consolidation episodes.

There is considerable interest in increasing private participation in infrastructure to meet the twin goals of climate mitigation and development in low- and middle-income countries. At the same time, this infrastructure needs to make returns in order to be financially sustainable.

Low tax compliance in low- and middle-income countries around the world limits the ability of governments to offer effective public services. This paper reports the results of a randomly rolled out text message campaign aimed at promoting tax compliance among landowners in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. L...

The decline in global inequality over the last decades has spurred a "sunshine" narrative of falling global inequality that has been rather oversold, in the sense, we argue, it is likely to be temporary. Our work first formalizes the intuition that the fall in global inequality will eventually rever...

This paper discusses how fiscal policy can help foster more inclusive growth in developing Asia. On average, government expenditures in developing Asia are higher, as a share of gross domestic product, than those in Latin America and the Caribbean. Relative to Latin America, developing Asia spends m...

This paper discusses the evolution of key taxes in the past 20 years in developing Asia and fiscal challenges that these countries face in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It presents estimates of tax capacity and tax potential and discusses the productivity of key taxes in the region. The paper find...