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Sudan has the potential to become a dynamic economy and a bread basket for the Arab world and East-Central Africa. However, resource endowment is not sufficient to bring about sustainable growth and prosperity. Sudans macroeconomic conditions remain weak since the secession of South Sudan in 2011, despite some improvements. The repercussions of the secession of South Sudan present enormous challenges for Sudan with respect to managing the macro-fiscal adjustment and promoting a structural re-orientation of the economy. The signing in March 2013 of the implementation matrix of the agreement between Sudan and South Sudan provides some fresh financial relief to Sudan and creates a great opportunity for further policy reforms to address the post-secession challenges. Sudans growth strategy should involve policies aimed at improving the investment climate and broadening private sector-led growth, and diversifying the economy toward non-oil sectors such as agriculture, industry, export, and local trade.

This paper studies comprehensive national panel data of local option sales taxes at the monthly frequency. I calculate state-by-month population weighted averages of local sales tax rates. I document ten stylized facts concerning the time series patterns and spatial dynamics of local sales taxes. The paper then considers a tax system approach to tax competition where states compete on a variety of margins that are often ignored by the standard focus on tax rates. Using the state-by-month averages, I find a significant association between one state's tax system and its neighboring states' tax systems.

By how much will faster economic growth boost government revenue? This paper estimates short- and long-run tax buoyancy in OECD countries between 1965 and 2012. We find that, for aggregate tax revenues, short-run tax buoyancy does not significantly differ from one in the majority of countries; yet, it has increased since the late 1980s so that tax systems have generally become better automatic stabilizers. Long-run buoyancy exceeds one in about half of the OECD countries, implying that GDP growth has helped improve structural fiscal deficit ratios. Corporate taxes are by far the most buoyant, while excises and property taxes are the least buoyant. For personal income taxes and social contributions, short- and long-run buoyancies have declined since the late 1980s and have, on average, become lower than one.

Increases in government spending and reduction in taxes can boost private spending of households and firms during economic downturns keeping output and employment at a higher level. Such an idea of fiscal policy as a tool in dampening business cycle downturns dates back to the Great Depression of the 1930s and since then is the cornerstone in the discussions about short- term economic policy. Especially in the 1960s and 1970s these discussion came down to the principal debate about the effectiveness between monetary versus fiscal policy. Although evidence from that period are of limited help for today’s policymakers due to changes in economic environment and methodological deficiencies of that time (Kretzmer, 1992), the monetary versus fiscal policy debate has been enlightening and "various ins and outs of the discussion have served valuably to enhance knowledge and awareness" (McCallum, 1986, p. 24). However, a large portion of controversies in the fiscal policy domain is today still present. Differently from monetary policy, there is no consensus about fiscal policy effects and different theories foretell different outcomes. This fact along with fiscal policy lags have been over the decades the main cons of fiscal policy as a powerful tool in stabilizing the economy. Still, history shows that countries are prone to resort to fiscal policy to stabilize the economy especially in cases of severe economic downturn. The recent 2008- 09/10 crisis reopened (again) the debate on the (in)effectiveness of automatic stabilizers and thus the need for stimuli packages. This doctoral dissertation is a collection of four essays in the field of fiscal policy. The main goal of the dissertation is to extend the existing empirical research on automatic stabilizers and discretionary measures on the case of a small developing (transition) economy such as Croatia and investigate the effects of fiscal policy actions under normal, good and bad economic times. Moreover, this dissertation puts forwards some of the challenging questions regarding the EMU Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) fiscal rule, inspecting its usefulness and appropriateness. After the introduction given in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 investigates the behaviour of the cyclical and structural component of the budget in Croatia using the official European Commission approach. Results show that in the 1995-2009 period the cyclical and cycli- cally adjusted budget balance were both on average in deficit. When considering the size of the cyclical component, under a level of uncertainty, it may be concluded that automatic stabilizers are not so strong in Croatia. This may be due to the fact that they may be constraint by the combination of low tax elasticities and a relatively low share of taxes in GDP. Additionally, the role of expenditure stabilizers may be small because of the weak and insufficient formal unemployment and social security compen- sation schemes. When considering the cyclically adjusted budget balance as a measure of discretionary fiscal policy it may be concluded that substantial discretionarism is ev- idenced in Croatia in the observed period. Often, the actual budget balance deficit was largely due to the structural rather than cyclical component, meaning that the Croatian government lacked fiscal discipline. Moreover, pro-cyclical fiscal policy is evidenced in several periods. Chapter 3 explores the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on a set of macroeconomic variables in Croatia in the 1995-2011 period using the structural vector autoregression model. Results show Keynesian effects of government spending increases or tax cuts on output, being the impact multiplier above 2 in both cases, but of different sign. Moreover, private consumption and private investment also react positively after a government spending shock, but the effect is even more pronounced and significant after a government investment shock. If tax cuts are considered then it is possible to conclude that a positive effect on output and private consumption is mainly due to a tax cut in indirect taxes. Since empirical evidence goes in favor of the fact that discretionary actions are more effective and significant in bad economic times (Auerbach and Gorodnichenko, 2012 ; Batini et al., 2012, among others), Chapter 4 extends the stabilizing effects of fiscal policy in Croatia by distinguish fiscal multipliers during recessionary and expansionary times. In doing so, the smooth transition vector autoregression model is applied within the direct projection method, focussing merely on government spending increases (rather than tax cuts) as fiscal stimuli measures. Results show that multipliers in expansionary times are generally statistically insignificant, while in recessionary times they show to be statistically significant and much larger (than when they are evaluated within a linear framework). When investigating the possible government spending trilemma between spending for purchases of goods and services, for wages or for capital goods, it is possible to note that in times of economic downturn in Croatia the effects after the increase in the first are most advantageous. Given the fact that fiscal rules can dampen the role of automatic stabilizers, Chapter 5 discusses the functionality of the cyclically adjusted budget balance and the SGP fiscal rule. To do so a DSGE model calibrated on the example of a fiscally stable country (Austria) is used. Results show that there is a low correlation between the cyclical com- ponent estimated according to the official European Commission (EC) methodology and the same retrieved from the DSGE model. Moreover, there is a substantial disagreement among official and model-based estimates of the fiscal policy stance as well as timing of violation of the SGP structural deficit rule. Above that, in more than half of the cases when both deficit fiscal rules (Maastricht and SGP) are violated, the official method- ology signals a deterioration in the structural balance, while the model-based measure indicates it is due to the cyclical slump of the economy.

This report’s starting point is thus to acknowledge that despite Sweden’s many virtues, there are areas in which it can do better, and the task has been to identify those areas, focusing particularly on the quality of the investment climate and competitiveness. This has been done in two main ways. First, by looking at areas of the business environment captured by databases compiled in the World Bank Group’s Global Indicators Group—Doing Business, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Regulations, and Women, Business and the Law. And second, by examining other critical areas where there is a large body of data, knowledge and insight that casts relevant light on several key policy challenges facing the country in coming years. In the paragraphs that follow we present a summary of the report’s main conclusions.

The main objective of this bachelor thesis is to create distinctive groups of member states of the European union in terms of their tax systems based on cluster analysis computed in the XLSTAT program on data from the annual report of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Partial aim´s task is to assign certain characteristics that best describe such defined groups of states. The theoretical part deals with the definition of the terms tax system, tax mix and tax quota, along with the factors that affect or distort these indicators. The practical part contains the general characteristics of the method of cluster analysis, with an emphasis on the k-means clustering method, which was applied in the analysis. The last chapter contains an author´s description of created clusters that are the outcome of our analysis in the XLSTAT program.

In this paper we present an ontological framework for modeling the core concepts of personal income taxes, based on the Italian law. The ontological analysis focuses on an highlevel conceptualization of the main principles of tax legislation, and is largely based on contributions from legal doctrine and the most relevant Italian Constitutional Court's decisions in tax law. As such, the model may serve as a framework to be specialized by further ontological modules. In addition to the core ontological concepts of tax domain, an emphasis is given to the norms application process, which we believe helps to explain the complicated way taxes are imposed. In our approach, the final result of this process is a tax position, which accounts for the relationship between the taxpayer and the treasury with respect to a particular tribute. Copyright 2013 ACM.

One of the major problems associated with the negative environmental impact of vehicles is the significant level of CO 2 emissions. The increasing concentration in CO 2 in the atmosphere as a result of vehicle emissions is accompanied by both an increase in the consumption of petroleum fuels, which have limited resources, and global climate change. The aim of this work is to improve the mechanism of economic stimulation to reduce CO 2 emissions from vehicles through changes in the system of taxation of oil products. Analytic investigation by the authors and the systematization of the main methods of reducing vehicle CO 2 emissions have revealed the required government direction to improve the economic management of their implementation and the necessity for priority stimulation to produce and consume fuel that is more environmentally acceptable. One effective instrument for such stimulus is an improved method of taxing oil products through the introduction of a new tax which takes into account the level of CO 2 emissions from fuel combustion while also taking state measures to limit the growth in prices for gasoline and diesel fuel. The authors have found the dependence of vehicle CO 2 emissions on the qualitative characteristics of consumed fuel (gasoline and diesel) and have substantiated a methodological approach to the tax calculation. © 2013 WIT Press. WIT Transactions on the Built Environment;International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning

La economía como ciencia y como política pública, por mucho tiempo, se ha mantenido alejada de los criterios ambientales; no obstante, los primeros acercamientos, que se dan a partir de la corriente ortodoxa de la economía son limitados debido al tecnicismo de sus herramientas y al fragmentado universo de análisis. Particularmente, la política fiscal ambiental se sustenta en esta forma de análisis, usa herramientas que le permiten identificar y “cuantificar” externalidades y utiliza métodos matemáticos para corregirlas a partir de puntos óptimos y de equilibrio, en particular, se incluye el criterio de “quien contamina paga” como único argumento de tributación ambiental. Sin embargo, los problemas medioambientales, que no son medibles y que tienen un importante componente de incertidumbre, no se detectan ni se resuelven sólo a partir de herramientas y métodos técnicos o matemáticos; más aún considerando que en medio del conflicto económico ambiental se encuentra el ser humano. Esta conjugación de elementos hace que la política ambiental sea un asunto mucho más complejo que el simple “punto óptimo”. En este sentido, la economía ecológica hace grandes avances para integrar criterios, tradicionalmente desplazados del estudio de la economía y del diseño de la política ambiental, concentrándose en el ser humano.

This paper presents a model to determine the tax effort and tax capacity of 113 countries and the main variables on which they depend. The results and the model allow a clear determination of which countries are near their tax capacity and which are some way from it, and therefore, could increase their tax revenue. This paper also determines central factors on which tax capacity depends: the level of development, trade, education, inflation, income distribution, corruption, and the ease of tax collection.

A general framework is analyzed which contains several special transfer (tax and pension) models. In our static two-overlapping-generation framework, every individual works in the first stage of the adult age, while is retired in the second. The government operates a balanced linear transfer system, sometimes with caps. In the models, the individuals may optimize their situation in various ways: contributing to voluntary pension, restraining labor supply and underreporting wages. Individuals are typically short-sighted, therefore they choose paternalistically suboptimal decisions. The models provide useful information on the socially optimal paternalistic transfer system.

The coexistence of different income tax systems is structurally antithetic to a system – the EU one – which promotes economic integration. Does EU law, in accordance with these scopes, provide solutions for the distribution of tax powers between member states? In particular, does the coexistence of those tax powers imply the recognition of a “priority” in taxation of cross-border income, belonging to one rather than the other Member States? The fundamental principles of EU law – see the EU Treaties – offer no support to affirm the existence of such distribution parameters and, more generally, it is much more difficult to determine whether these same principles of European law involve a set of coordination rules, which the tax claim of the Member States must comply.; La coexistence de différents systèmes de revenus se confrontes structurellement à un ordonnancement qui promeut l'intégration économique. Est-ce que le droit européen, en accord avec ces exigences, prévoit des solutions pour la répartition du pouvoir impositif entre Etats membres ? En particulier, est ce que la coexistence de tels pouvoirs implique comme son homonyme (imposé par le droit communautaire), la reconnaissance nécessaire d'une priorité dans la taxation des revenustransnationaux, appartenant à l'un plutôt qu'à l'autre des Etats membres ? Les principes fondamentaux du droit européen – indiqués dans les Traités instituant les Communautés Européennes – n'offrent aucun appui certain pour affirmer l'existence de tels paramètres de répartition, et, de manière plus générale, il est bien plus difficile d'établir si ces mêmes principes de droit européen impliquent un ensemble de règles de coordination, auquel la prétention fiscale des Etats membres doit être conforme.

Käibemaks on kujunenud tänapäeval paljudes riikides üheks olulisemaks tuluallikaks. Käibemaksu rakendamisel lisandväärtuse maksuna tekivad aga mitmed riskid ning kirjanduses viidatakse sellele, et selline süsteem on aldis maksupettustele. Väitekiri lähtubki eeldusest, et hetkel kehtiv süsteem on pettustealdis ning seda olukorda ei saa lahendada efektiivselt parema järelevalvega või järelevalvemehhanismide parandamisega. Töö põhiväide on see, et pöördmaksustamine on olemasolevatest ettepanekutest kõige efektiivsem ja lihtsamini rakendatav meede, mis oluliselt vähendaks maksupettuseid. Tulenevalt sellest eeldusest ja väitest on töös järgmised uurimisküsimused: 1. millised on peamised käibemaksupettused ning kuidas neid eristada; 2. millised käibemaksupettused avalduvad peamiselt Eesti ja Euroopa Kohtu praktikas; 3. millised on käibemaksupettuste tõkestamise vahendid ning mis on nende vahendite positiivsed ja negatiivsed küljed. Töös jõutakse järeldusele, et efektiivseim lahendus maksupettuste tõkestamisel on pöördmaksustamine. Pöördmaksustamise eeliseks tuleb pidada just seda, et see võimaldaks maksupettuseid suhteliselt lihtsalt vältida ja sellega kaasneksid minimaalsed negatiivsed mõjud. Pöördmaksustamisega samaväärne oleks jagatud makse või reaalaja käibemaksu mudeli kohaldamine koos teiste infotehnoloogiliste vahenditega, mis tagaksid maksude laekumise riigile. Kuna aga nende süsteemide rakendamisega kaasnevad kulutused, seda nii arendusele kui juurutamisele, siis lähitulevikus nende lahendustega arvestada ei saa. Seetõttu jõutakse töös järeldusele, et pöördmaksustamine on olemasolevatest ettepanekutest kõige efektiivsem ja lihtsamini rakendatav meede, mis oluliselt vähendaks maksupettuseid., Value added tax has become one of the main sources of income for many countries over the last 50-60 years. The popularity of value added tax arises from the fact that the administration of the tax is relatively simple, because a large burden in collecting taxes is imposed on persons engaged in business, who sell goods and services to consumers. According to some information, value added tax has so far been established in 156 countries and seven other countries are considering the establishment of value added tax by 2013. At the same time, large-scale value added tax reforms are underway in India and China. Of the larger countries, only the United States of America has not yet established a common value added tax, where sales taxes are applied. The developments related to the value added tax have been prominent in the European Union, where the regulation of value added tax has been harmonised over a long time period in order to ensure the free movement of goods and services and harmonise the regulations of Member States. Several risks, however, accompany the application of value added tax, and there are references in the related written materials that such a system is prone to tax fraud. The underlying reason for this is that the implementation of the value added tax system, on the one hand, leverages the creation of tax losses for a country and, on the other hand, cases of tax frauds are difficult to discover. Leverage means that an unlawful activity may lead to a situation where a person reduces its tax liability or causes an excess payment by deducting an unsubstantiated input value added tax. This is because the value added tax is calculated on an accrual basis and the deduction of tax does not depend on whether the seller has paid or has not paid the value added tax. In this way it is possible for value added tax to be deducted or, upon an excess payment, also reclaimed from the state in a situation where the seller has not actually paid the tax. This is what makes fraud possible. Detection of such fraud is even more difficult as the state cannot verify all transactions and cross-border transactions make the identification of related circumstances difficult and time-consuming for a tax authority. There are different data and ratios available concerning the scale of tax fraud. For example, some written materials refer to the fact that such fraud may generally account for 2-2.5% of the GDP of a country. In Germany, uncollected value added tax is estimated to total EUR 17 billion per year (that figure includes carousel fraud and the shadow economy, unsubstantiated deductions of input value added tax and bankruptcies). In the UK, uncollected value added tax is estimated to account for 13.5% of the total collected amount. The estimated share of carousel fraud is EUR 1.5 to EUR 3 billion per year; this is 1.5-2.5% of the total collected value added tax. A few years ago, the European Commission contracted an analysis, according to which the difference in the collected value added tax in 25 Member States in 2006 totalled EUR 106.7 billion (at that time, Bulgaria and Romania had not yet joined the EU and the study did not include Cyprus). On the basis of that analysis, the estimated difference in collection of value added tax in Estonia was EUR 111 million, which accounts for 8% of the collected tax. In Greece, the same ratio was 30. Irrespective of which study or method is used, all figures reflecting tax fraud are significant and therefore the European Commission has continuously looked for possibilities to improve the exchange of information, the administration of taxes and to find appropriate measures to prevent tax fraud. Recently, a more significant discussion began at the beginning of 2010, when the so-called Green Paper was published by the European Commission. It dealt with different possibilities and opened a discussion, during which all persons could express their opinion on the proposals made in the Green Paper.

This report examines how green growth and sustainable development policies can be incorporated into structural reform agendas. Indeed, as demonstrated in the report, many of these policies are closely linked and synergistic with the framework policies applied by G20 governments in their efforts to pursue strong and sustainable growth. The report, has been prepared in response to the request from G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in their communication of 25-26 February 2012 that asked the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the World Bank and the United Nation (UN), to prepare a report that provides options for G20 countries on inserting green growth and sustainable development policies into structural reform agendas, tailored to specific country conditions and level of development. The report will be an input to the G-20 leader's summit in Los Cabos and provides a toolkit of policy options from which countries may draw-upon when designing their own green growth strategies. The G20 development working group has also tasked the International Organizations with the development of a non-prescriptive toolkit of policy options to support inclusive green growth in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication in developing countries.

The downturn has accentuated strains on the financial system of Anguilla. The 2011 Article IV Consultation highlights that the growth outlook is improving with major tourism projects getting back on course, although a slow recovery is only expected to begin in 2012. Executive Directors have emphasized that a new fiscal framework is needed with an appropriate balance between current and capital expenditure and in line with the resources available. Fiscal policy should be designed to meet the combined objectives of debt sustainability, deficit reduction, and long-term economic growth.

The coexistence of different income tax systems is structurally antithetic to a system – the EU one – which promotes economic integration. Does EU law, in accordance with these scopes, provide solutions for the distribution of tax powers between member states? In particular, does the coexistence of those tax powers imply the recognition of a “priority” in taxation of cross-border income, belonging to one rather than the other Member States? The fundamental principles of EU law – see the EU Treaties – offer no support to affirm the existence of such distribution parameters and, more generally, it is much more difficult to determine whether these same principles of European law involve a set of coordination rules, which the tax claim of the Member States must comply., La coexistence de différents systèmes de revenus se confrontes structurellement à un ordonnancement qui promeut l'intégration économique. Est-ce que le droit européen, en accord avec ces exigences, prévoit des solutions pour la répartition du pouvoir impositif entre Etats membres ? En particulier, est ce que la coexistence de tels pouvoirs implique comme son homonyme (imposé par le droit communautaire), la reconnaissance nécessaire d'une priorité dans la taxation des revenustransnationaux, appartenant à l'un plutôt qu'à l'autre des Etats membres ? Les principes fondamentaux du droit européen – indiqués dans les Traités instituant les Communautés Européennes – n'offrent aucun appui certain pour affirmer l'existence de tels paramètres de répartition, et, de manière plus générale, il est bien plus difficile d'établir si ces mêmes principes de droit européen impliquent un ensemble de règles de coordination, auquel la prétention fiscale des Etats membres doit être conforme.

The objectives of the study are to provide data which can be compared between economies on a like-for-like basis; to facilitate the benchmarking of tax systems within relevant economic and geographical groupings, which can provide an opportunity to learn from peer group economies; and to enable an in-depth analysis of the results which can be used to help identify good practices and possible reforms. The private sector plays an essential role in contributing to economic growth and prosperity. Companies contribute to socio-economic development by employing workers, improving the skills and knowledge base, buying from local suppliers and providing products and services that improve people's lives. They also contribute to government revenues through generating and paying taxes. The paying taxes study is unique because it generates a set of indicators that measure the world's tax systems from the point of view of business and also because it covers the full range of taxes paid in 183 economies, measuring how business complies with the different tax laws and regulations in each economy.

Innovation is the main driver of long-term economic growth. The accumulation of capital, whether in the form of physical assets such as plants and equipment, or through better human capital, cannot indefinitely sustain growth unless new products, services, processes, and/or business models are developed and implemented. This paper describes the actors involved and the types of funding available at different stages of the innovation process, the rationales for public intervention, and the advantages and disadvantages of some of the most commonly used policy instruments. Innovation activities are more difficult to finance than other types of investment for several reasons. Innovation produces an intangible asset that does not typically constitute accepted collateral to obtain external funding. Also, the technological and market uncertainty of innovation activities makes the returns to investment highly uncertain, creating significant problems for the standard risk adjustment methods used by providers of funds. This paper uses a streamlined version of an innovation process with three stages to categorize the different sources of finance available; in reality, considerable crossover takes places among instruments because innovation processes are not discrete.

El presente Documento de Trabajo recoge los artículos seleccionados en el marco del Call for Papers sobre Fiscalidad en América Latina que convoco el Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Alcalá. Este número presenta los artículos relativos a la temática económica, Los procesos de descentralización llevados a cabo en muchos países de América Latina han provocado el traspaso de un gran número de competencias desde la Administración Central a otras de ámbito inferior y, en particular, hacia los Gobiernos locales. Esta asunción de competencias por parte de las entidades subcentrales de gobierno implica la necesidad de recursos para alcanzar un grado suficiente de autonomía financiera por lo que el diseño de los modelos de financiación local resulta esencial. En el presente trabajo se han analizado los sistemas de financiación de las Haciendas Locales de algunos países representativos de América Latina como Brasil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador y Perú. Para ello se han tenido en cuenta los modelos de distribución de competencias, los regímenes tributarios locales y los sistemas de transferencias como mecanismos de financiación intergubernamentales, The decentralization processes carried out in many countries of Latin America have caused the transfer of different tax competencies from Central Government to lower levels and, in particular, to Local Governments. This assumption of tax competencies by Sub central levels of Governments implies the need of resources to achieve an adequate degree of financial self‐government. Thereby, the design of Local funding models is essential. In this paper, we have analyzed the Local funding models in some representative countries of Latin America such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Peru. Bearing this in mind, we have taken into account the patterns of tax competencies, the Local tax models and the grants systems as intergovernmental funding mechanisms

Colombia has the seventh highest Gini coefficient of income inequality in the world. The Santos Administration is aware of this challenge and has taken important steps to reduce disparities. The Government is also aspiring to join the OECD, which exhibits much lower income disparities, mainly as a result of effective policies of fiscal redistribution. In Colombia, meanwhile, direct taxes, indirect taxes, and monetary transfers hardly dent the high Gini coefficient. To reduce income inequality, Colombian policy makers could consider introducing a more progressive tax-transfer system. This paper ranks alternative inequality-reducing fiscal policy options based on their effectiveness. It argues that there are potentially important redistributive potential gains available from tax reforms if combined with good spending decisions. It presents an illustrative reform package that would be sufficient for Colombia to reach levels of inequality similar to Chile or Costa Rica in a fiscally neutral manner. Nonetheless, further analysis is needed to explore all available policy options and identify those that are best suited for Colombia.

Facility for Investment Climate Advisory Services (FIAS) Since investment climate reforms in developing countries started gaining traction in the 1990s, most efforts have focused on issues at the national level, achieving varying degrees of success for reasons that are relatively well understood. This handbook provides an overview of efforts and achievements in subnational investment climate reforms. It is organized as follows. Chapter 2 reviews a number of countries experiences with subnational reforms, noting both success stories and disappointments and pointing toward lessons learned. Chapter 3 sets out the basic principles of subnational revenue, including business taxation. Chapter 4 describes sound licensing practices for subnational governments, including establishing licensing fees. Chapter 5 provides recommendations for subnational reform projects where both the regulatory authority and taxation require attention, which is the most common situation. Finally, the Appendix offers nine case studies covering subnational reform efforts in the following countries: Canada (British Columbia), The Russian Federation, China, Kenya, Tanzania, Peru (Lima), The Balkans (Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), Tajikistan, and Zambia.

This 2011 Article IV Consultation reviews Côte d’Ivoire’s economic condition. Côte d’Ivoire is emerging from a decade-long sociopolitical crisis that has held back its economic growth. In 2009, Côte d’Ivoire adopted an economic and financial program supported by a three-year Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement with the aim of ensuring a stable macroeconomic framework, promoting sustained growth, and reducing poverty. Executive Directors have commended Côte d’Ivoire’s rapid progress in reviving the economy. Directors have also welcomed the authorities’ good performance under the economic recovery program, especially the prudent budgetary stance.

This study focused on environmental tax measures, and on allocation, pricing, and taxation of Iceland’s major hydropower and geothermal resources. Measures to secure the tax base for the corporate income tax (CIT) are proposed. Taxation of the financial sector can be improved by a number of measures. The measures that increase fiscal levies on energy-intensive industries should be avoided. The proposals in this paper aim at efficiency and equity in the tax system rather than revenue growth.

Fiscal instruments are potentially among the most effective, and cost-effective, options for addressing externalities related to poor air quality, urban road congestion, and greenhouse gases. This paper takes a case study, focused on Mauritius (a pioneer in the use of green taxes) to illustrate how existing taxes, especially on fuels and vehicles, could be reformed to better address these externalities. We discuss, in particular, an explicit carbon tax; a variety of options for reforming vehicle taxes to meet environmental, equity, and revenue objectives; and a progressive transition to usage-based vehicle taxes to address congestion.

The Great Recession did not only affect European countries to a varying extent, its impact on national labour markets and on specific socio-economic groups in those markets also varied greatly. Institutional arrangements such as employment protection, unemployment insurance benefits and minimum income support, working time flexibility and wage setting played a crucial role in determining to what extent the economic crisis led to higher unemployment, wage cuts or income losses and rising poverty. As the crisis gained momentum, the action of automatic stabilisation mechanisms built into the national tax-benefit and social protection systems was accompanied by heterogeneous sets of discretionary policy measures. While these factors can explain cross-country variation in labour market developments, they also lead to an unequal distribution of economic risks associated with the crisis across socio-economic groups. The present paper aims to investigate and assess to what extent the financial and economic crisis that hit the global economy in 2008-2009 impacted these labour market developments and to what extent different socio-economic groups were affected.

The primary completion rate for 7 countries-Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Niger-more than doubled between 1991 and 2009. Still large differences persist between rich and poor within countries. In some low-income countries, such as Benin, the completion rates for the richest quintile are 95 percent or higher, but completion rates for the poorest quintile are 35 percent or less. And there is a 9 percentage point gap in the completion rates for boys and girls. Many poor people depend on biomass energy from plant materials or animal wastes for cooking and heating. Millions of deaths are caused by air pollution. Many are children in developing countries, who die of acute respiratory infections due to indoor air pollution resulting from burning fuel wood, crop residues, or animal dung. The economies of Sub-Saharan Africa are gradually shifting towards industry and services. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Sub-Saharan Africa expanded by 4.7 percent in 2010, up from 1.7 percent in 2009. In the last five years Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Mali, ranked in the top ten of 174 of the world s countries in making their regulatory environment more favorable to business. Middle East and North Africa has made impressive gains in women s health and education outcomes. In 2008 the low-and middle income economies of Middle East and North Africa produced 53 percent more energy compared to their 1990 level, but they consumed 133 percent more energy and energy use per capita increased by 63 percent. Economic growth and rising labor productivity has reduced poverty in South Asia, home to half the world s poor people living below $1.25 a day. Information and communications technology services dominate the service exports of South Asia like no other region. Latin American and the Caribbean is the most efficient energy user in the world, measured by the ratio of GDP to energy use. The rapid emergence of East Asia as the world s export powerhouse was complemented by surging final demand within the region, notably in China. Taxes fund a broad range of social and economic programs, national defense, and other purposes such as redistributing income to the aged and unemployed.