state capacity

The Mobile Salary Payment (MSP) reform in Afghanistan was an ambitious effort to build administrative capacity in one of the world’s most fragile states. Evidence on its impacts sheds light on what helps to improve state performance, and how fragilit...

What is the problem with relying exclusively on rigorous evidence? Is economic growth essential for human well-being?

Governments must make targeted investments in their tax capacity to increase tax revenues

Informality, compliance costs, and weak administrative capacity all constrain the effectiveness of VAT in lower-income countries. However, it is a crucial source of revenue that is better than the alternatives, so governments should focus on reforms ...

What was the role of state capacity in the economic development of the US?

Reducing tax rates increases tax revenues when enforcement capacity is low. However, low-capacity states can invest in tax enforcement to shift up the revenue-maximising tax rate.

NGO provision of health services in rural Uganda either complemented or undermined government capacity, depending on the supply of skilled labour

Chile’s OECD-aligned tax reform did not shift transfer pricing behaviour or generate additional tax revenues.

Ghost firms help real firms evade significant sums in tax, but the tax authority developed an innovative way to recover the revenue from cheating firms