Public Economics

Tax amnesties are a popular tool used by governments to encourage individuals and firms to partially fulfil their outstanding tax obligations, yet little is known about their effectiveness. Evidence from the Dominican Republic shows how partial forgi...

Transfer mispricing—the practice in which multinationals shift profits to subsidiaries in tax havens—disproportionately harms developing countries. What tools can low-capacity governments use to identify these cases of tax evasion? How can global corporate tax policies help curb evasion?

State capacity to provide property titles is limited in developing countries. Evidence from Tanzania suggests that community information on the willingness-to-pay for titles can help low-capacity governments determine fees and improve property titlin...

Government-led construction of manufacturing plants in dispersed US locations during WWII led to persistent increases in local manufacturing employment and wages, and increased upward economic mobility among pre-war residents who benefitted from loca...

What do we know about the implementation infrastructure in governments? How can we learn more, and what benefits would improved government analytics have for citizens?

New experimental methods, tested in Indonesia, can more accurately measure tax evasion by firms, revealing both the scale of tax evasion and providing insights into the characteristics associated with higher levels of evasion.

Households are willing to pay for public health insurance, but those who pay to enrol have higher average costs than those who enrol when insurance is free. How then should governments set premiums for health insurance given the high costs of raising...