To identify transactions at risk of tariff evasion, this paper matches export transaction data from France with import transaction data from Madagascar using container identifiers. Reporting discrepancies...
This is a presentation on improving tariff revenue mobilization in Georgia.
Does the internet enable the recruitment of transnational terrorists? Using geo-referenced population census data and personnel records from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant—a highly tech-savvy...
This paper presents a new methodology to detect corruption in customs and applies it to Madagascar’s main port. Manipulation of assignment of import declarations to inspectors is identified by measuring...
How do tariffs impact gender inequality? Using harmonized household survey and tariff data from 54 low- and middle-income countries, this paper shows that protectionism has an anti-female bias. On average...
This note describes how political economy analysis can be used to promote development, focusing specifically on state capture. It is intended to help practitioners within the World Bank execute and disseminate...
This paper reviews the emerging literature on which jobs can be performed from home and presents new estimates of the prevalence of such jobs based on the task content of occupations, their technology...
This paper presents new estimates of the share of jobs that can be performed from home. The analysis is based on the task content of occupations, their information and communications technology requirements...
This paper presents a new methodology to detect collusion in customs and applies it to Madagascar’s main port. Manipulation of assignment of import declarations to inspectors is identified by detecting...
Using a randomized survey experiment in urban Ghana, this paper demonstrates that the length of the reference period and the interview modality (in person or over the phone) affect how people respond in...
This paper examines how providing better information to customs inspectors and monitoring their actions affects tax revenue and fraud detection in Madagascar. First, an instrumental variables strategy...
Do elites capture foreign aid? This paper documents that aid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank...
What major insights have emerged from development economics in the past decade, and how do they matter for the World Bank? This challenging question was recently posed by World Bank Group President David...
Does democratization promote economic competition? This paper documents that the disruption of political connections associated with Suharto's fall had a modest pro-competitive effect on Indonesian manufacturing...
How do trade reforms impact households in different parts of the income distribution? This paper presents a new database, the Household Impacts of Tariffs data set, which contains harmonized household...
Workers in developing countries are subject to frequent health shocks. Using 10 weeks of high-frequency labor market data that were collected in urban Ghana, this paper documents that men are 9 percentage...
This paper characterizes the trade-off between the income gains and the inequality costs of trade using survey data for 54 developing countries. Tariff data on agricultural and manufacturing goods are...
This paper examines the effects of robotization on trade patterns, wages and welfare. It develops a Ricardian model with two-stage production and trade in intermediate and final goods in which robots can...
This paper quantifies the impact of market access on local GDP in the West Bank, proxied by nighttime lights, using the deployment of road closure obstacles by the Israeli army between 2005 and 2012 as...
Malagasy customs introduced performance-based payfor customs inspectors in Madagascar’s main port of Toamasina, incentivizing them to curb tax evasion andillicit financial flows, and expedite customs clearance...