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Many developing countries currently face tightening fiscal constraints as a result of the global financial crisis and associated reduction in both credit and demand. Policymarkers therefore have less fiscal space within which to undertake projects, so the opportunity cost of any misallocation of resources will be correspondingly higher. There is therefore an increasing need to rely more on evidence-based policymaking (EBPM). The is particularly so for large infrastructural projects, as these tend to be costly, and especially for transportation projects as these are particularly prone to result in sub-optimal outcomes. This paper examines the policy process for the implementation of the Jamaican Highway 2000, one of the largest and most costly infrastructure projects in Jamaica in recent years. A number of primary and secondary data sources were explored to ascertain the extent to which the decision to implement the project reflects a case for evidence-based decision-making in practice. This made it clear that the decision was taken at least partly on political grounds, largely in the absence of any supportive evidence, and on the basis of over-optimistic and unrealistic assumptions, and that this has created a number of serious, long-term challenges for Jamaica.

This paper examines how political markets affect economic outcomes through governments' investment decisions. It highlights avenues through which political market imperfections can incentivise government over-investment in transportation infrastructure and underinvestment in human capital. The case of Jamaica, a fiscally-constrained country, with a very dense transportation infrastructure network, but widely-acknowledged human capital deficiencies, was used to show that successive governments prioritisation of public expenditure have been unduly skewed towards investments in transportation infrastructure relative to investments in people. The results, derived from trend, statistical and regression analyses, indicate that political market imperfections adversely affect the critical balance between investments in transportation infrastructure and human capital - skewing governments' investment allocation decisions not only towards transportation infrastructure, but more specifically towards projects that can meet the incumbents' need for patronage and pork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs), a commonly-used tool for enforcing tax compliance, affect large firms' reported profitability and effective tax rate. Increased scrutiny may either improve reporting and compliance efforts, or lead to adverse reactions from large taxpayers such as profit shifting to reduce tax liabilities. As a source of exogenous enforcement shock, we exploit the actions of Jamaica's LTU around its large-taxpayer eligibility cutoff using a before-during regression discontinuity approach. We find the LTU increases pre-tax profit margin by 2-3 percentage points. Increased effective tax rates are also evidenced, albeit less robustly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little research has been conducted on the status of gender relations and the nature of gender roles within the financial sectors of developing countries. This article investigates the state of gender relations in the Jamaican financial sector, and particularly the existence of the proverbial glass ceiling. The article identifies the reasons for this apparent glass ceiling, by comparing the views of selected female CEOs with those of chairpersons of boards of directors in the financial sector. Elite interviews and self-administered questionnaires were the primary instruments used to obtain data. The results suggest that whereas explicit gender discrimination is on the decline, societal norms make it difficult for women to advance in the sector. By presenting a multifaceted investigation of the glass ceiling in the Jamaican financial sector, this article makes credible suggestions for improving gender equity in the country's financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]