A Rationale for the WTO Prohibition of Export Subsidies: Strategic Export Subsidies and World Welfare

This article presents a model that provides an economic rationale for multilateral agreements, such as the WTO, that prohibit export subsidies. The model is a multicountry version of the well-known Brander and Spencer (Journal of International Economics (1985) 18, 83–100) analysis of profit-shifting export subsidies, with the addition of an opportunity cost of government revenue greater than unity, as in Neary (Journal of International Economics (1994) 37, 197–218) to capture the fact that the export subsidy will typically be funded by distortionary taxation. It explains the unilateral incentive for welfare-maximizing governments to provide export subsidies and shows how the multilateral prohibition of export subsidies may increase world welfare.     

Dual Income Taxation: A Promising Path to Tax Reform for Developing Countries

The dual income tax combines a progressive tax on labor income and a lower flat tax on income from capital. Unlike flat tax systems, a dual income tax provides developing countries greater flexibility in addressing tax competition while retaining progressivity. Countries could use the move to a dual income tax system not just as an opportunity to rationalize the taxation of income from business operations and investment but also as a vehicle for broader reform of their tax systems.     

The regional effects of Indonesia's oil and gas policy: options for reform

This paper analyses the effects on the regions of Indonesia's fuel policy. It discusses how the sharing of oil and gas revenue and taxes between the centre and the regions affects the sub-national fiscal position, and examines the distribution of fuel subsidies across regions. The paper also examines the recent proposals to discontinue subsidising gasoline for private vehicles or to eliminate fuel subsidies altogether, and shows how the regions would be affected if these suggestions were adopted. We argue that the proposals would increase efficiency and equity and should therefore be implemented.     

Current-Account Reversals in Developing Countries: The Role of Fundamentals

This paper studies episodes of current-account reversal in developing countries (DCs) in the period 1965–1994. First, a number of persistent shifts (reversals) in the current-account balance dynamics are identified by structural break and segmented trend tests; then, the relationship between these reversals and a set of fundamentals suggested by the intertemporal approach to the current account is investigated in a panel-data set-up. We find that fundamentals play a different role in episodes of persistent deterioration or improvement of the current-account balance in DCs.     

发展中国家地区主义的政治经济学——以南太平洋地区为例

自20世纪60年代起,地区主义在发展中国家广泛兴起。在长期的地区主义实践中,发展中国家逐步形成了多层次、开放性、经济和安全优先的地区主义发展路径,并且正朝着综合性、多功能、外向型的方向发展。这一路径的形成主要取决于发展中国家所拥有的地区秩序的双层结构。从地区内部看,对于发展中国家而言,地区主义的发展有其特有的战略考虑。在政治上,通过对话与协商维护国家独立与主权平等,维护国内稳定和地区安全;在经济上,通过贸易、金融、货币等政策的协调,来化解内部经济矛盾与冲击。从对外联系看,尽管很多时候外部大国介入地区事务能够增进地区利益,但由于在客观上存在的对外不对称依赖关系,这种介入很可能会成为组建排他性的地区政治经济集团的制约因素。总之,由于地区内的优先政治经济考虑以及对地区外力量的借重与依赖,在可以预见的未来,发展中国家地区主义难以发展成为欧洲式的政治经济联盟。     

Reforms,Exchange Rates and Monetary Commitment: A Panel Analysis for OECD Countries

The paper investigates the link between monetary policy and structural reforms in open economies. We test three hypotheses: (a) the Calmfors hypothesis that the degree of reforms is higher in the case of autonomous policy and lower in the case of commitment, (b) the TINA hypothesis which implies a positive impact of a monetary policy rule on the extent of reforms, and (c) a third factors hypothesis. In our empirical analysis on panel data of 23 OECD countries from 1980–2000 we find little evidence for the Calmfors hypothesis, but evidence in favor of the TINA argument for labor market and regulatory reform.

Tax Non-Compliance and Perceptions of Corruption: Policy Implications for Developing Countries

Tax non-compliance and perceptions of corruption are key challenges to state-building in developing countries. Using a social psychology approach, we develop a theoretical model in which different forms of perceived corruption can adversely influence the way individual taxpayers behave. We then apply this model to Indonesia, placing our empirical findings in the context of compliance risk management, identifying strategies to improve tax compliance, and exploring how to implement these strategies effectively. We shed light on the applicability of the traditional responsive regulatory approach (used by revenue authorities to deal with intentionally non-compliant taxpayers), which combines measures in attempting to achieve either voluntary or enforced compliance. While the empirical evidence is based on the Indonesian experience, we suggest that our model is sufficiently general and robust to be applicable to other developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.     

Measuring Restrictiveness of Bilateral Trade Policies: A Comparison between Developed and Developing Countries

This paper compares the degree of openness to trade of three developed countries markets—the European Union, Japan, the United States—with that of three middle-income countries, namely Brazil, India, and China. A theoretically consistent protection measure—the Mercantilistic Trade Restrictiveness Index (MTRI)—is employed to average tariffs at different levels of aggregation. The computation relies on a comparative static applied general equilibrium model (Global Trade Analysis Project—GTAP) featuring imperfect competition as well as on the bilateral applied tariffs included in the most recent version of the GTAP database. Results provide a different picture from what could have been expected given the widely publicized diffusion of preferential schemes supposedly favoring developing countries exports. JEL no.  F17, C68, Q17     

Family Income and Educational Attainment: A Review of Approaches and Evidence for Britain

It is widely recognized that, on average, children from poorerbackgrounds have worse educational outcomes than their better-offpeers. There is less evidence on how this relationship has changedover time and, indeed, what exactly leads to these inequalities.In this paper we demonstrate that the correlation between familybackground (as measured by family income) and educational attainmenthas been rising between children born in the late 1950s andthose born two decades later. We then consider the extent towhich these associations are due to the causal effects of incomerather than the result of other dimensions of family background.We review the approaches taken to answering this question, drawingmainly on the US literature, and then present our own evidencefrom the UK, discussing the plausible range for the true impactof income on education. Our results indicate that income hasa causal relationship with educational attainment.