Development Research Group

International trade has historically been a force for development and poverty reduction. But trade is increasingly viewed as contributing to inequality and risk, depleting natural resources, and threatening the environment. To better understand the role of international trade on development outcomes and their sustainability and inclusivity, the World Bank and the editorial team from the Journal of International Economics are hosting a research conference in Washington, DC on September 12-13, 2024.

Note: The call for papers is now closed. General registration will open on or around August 1, 2024.

DaTax conducts cutting-edge analytical work with micro tax data, aimed at supporting the development of equitable and sustainable public finance systems. The partners work in close collaboration with tax administrations and Ministries of Finance in over 15 developing countries globally. The analysis feeds directly into policy design and helps build partner countries’ analytical capacity.

Through a combination of micro evidence—the behavior of taxpayers, firms, workers, and consumers—and macro evidence, DaTax studies macroeconomic outcomes and cross-country patterns across stages of development. 

Land institutions and policies will be critical to help African countries respond to the challenges of climate change, urban expansion, structural transformation, and gender equality. Yet, many African land registries command little trust due to poor performance and wealth bias in service delivery. This publication draws on a wealth of data, examples, and studies from Africa and beyond to show that regulatory and institutional reforms can harness countries' potential by improving the quality, coverage, usefulness, and sustainability of documented land rights.

While countries increasingly commit to pricing greenhouse gases directly through carbon taxes or emissions trading systems, indirect forms of carbon pricing—such as fuel excise taxes and fuel subsidy reforms—remain important factors affecting mitigation incentives. In Measuring Total Carbon Pricing, a methodology is developed for calculating a total carbon price applied to carbon emissions in a sector, a fuel, or the whole economy. The methodology is now being deployed in a growing set of analyses to better understand critical issues like energy subsidy reform and global carbon pricing.