Written by Ved P. Gandhi, Liam P. Ebrill, George A. Mackenzie, Luis Mañas-Antón, Jitendra R. Modi, Somchai Richupan, Fernando Sanchez-Ugarte, and Parthasarathi Shome, this book contains 12 articles. It examines the relevance to developing countries of the tax policy recommendations of supply-side economists and attempts to delineate policy guidelines to ensure that fiscal management enhances rather than inhibits growth and efficiency in the wider economy.

Edited by William Alexander, Jeffrey M. Davis, Liam P. Ebrill, and Carl-Johan Lindgren, this volume discusses cross-country restructuring experiences building on the foundation laid by its predecessor Band Soundness and Macroeconomic Policy. It discusses broad principles and actions to guide policy makers in restructuring their banking systems.

The apparent contradiction between trade liberalization and continuing high trade tax revenue raises the important question of how, precisely, the one affects the other. Although policymakers generally recognize the long-term benefits of trade liberalization, some have argued for at least a slower pace, in part because of revenue concerns. This paper seeks to address these issues in three complimentary ways: through an overview of the factors that may have a bearing on the question, throug...

This paper provides an overview of the recent revenue performance in the Baltics, Russia, and other countries of the former Soviet Union, and a survey of these countries' efforts to modify tax policy in line with the needs of increasingly market-oriented economies and to increase the effectiveness of tax administration. It focuses principally on the 12 countries of the CIS, but refers also to the Baltic countries, and addresses the period from 1995 to mid-1998, prior to the August 1998 fin...

The reform of fiscal policies and institutions lies at the heart of structural adjustment in developing countries. Although the immediate aim of such reform is to reduce fiscal imbalances to achieve macroeconomic stability, the long-term goal is to secure more durable improvements in fiscal performance. This study reviews the fiscal reform experience of 36 low-income developing countries that undertook macroeconomic and structural adjustment in the context of the IMF's Structural Adjustment F...

Value-added tax, or VAT, first introduced less than 50 years ago, is now a pivotal component of tax systems around the world. The rapid and seemingly irresistible rise of the VAT is probably the most important tax development of the latter twentieth century, and certainly the most breathtaking. Written by a team of experts from the IMF, this book examines the remarkable spread and current reach of the innovative tax and draws lessons about the design and implementation of the VAT, as experien...

Poland's economy rebounded dramatically in 1992-93, several years after the nation embarded on a comprehensive program of economic transformation. This paper describes Polan's steps in the areas of public finance, monetary policy and financial sector reform, trade and exchange rate policy, and microeconomic liberalization, as well as the social impact of transition.

In Casino Capitalism Hans-Werner Sinn examines the causes of the banking crisis, points out the flaws in the economic rescue packages, and presents a master plan for the reform of financial markets. Sinn argues that the crisis came about because limited liability induced both Wall Street and Main Street to gamble with real estate properties. He meticulously describes the process of lending to American homeowners and criticizes both the process of securitizing and selling mortgage ...

What caused Asia's largest economy, once the envy of the world, to lag behind many of the other industrial countries? And why did it take so long for Japan to recover from the bursting of its asset price bubble of the late 1980s? In this volume, a team from the International Monetary Fund examines the causes of the lingering economic problems of Japan, the crisis in its banking system, the reasons for weak business investment, and the government's efforts to kick-start the economy through a s...

This Manual provides guidance on the implementation of the Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency by setting out its principles and practices in detail, and establishing priorities for improving fiscal transparency. Serving as a reference for economists and financial analysts on the various aspects of fiscal transparency, the Manual includes a section on open budget preparation, execution, and reporting, and presents the OECD’s best practices for achieving budget transparency.

Microfinance in Bangladesh has reached maturity, numerous players and the largest number of clients in the whole world at relatively low cost and efficiency. Despite these successes, the operations of most credit institutions are still being manually done, client overlap is rampant, and there are many would-be borrowers that are currently not having access to finance. The introduction of a centralized ICT platform is intended to demonstrate, given the current international and local experienc...

The launch of European Monetary Union (EMU) marked the beginning of a new era, and its establishment has proved an impressive success at the technical, legal, and procedural level. After all, EMU has accelerated economic and political integration in the European Union and tied the economies of the Member States closer together. However, the performance of the euro, high unemployment rates, uneven output and investment growth, and the issue of structural reforms that have yet to be tackled ...