Working Papers
The Impact of COVID-19 on Formal Firms: An Application Using Admin Tax Data Across Countries
With Pierre Bachas and Camille Semelet
Coverage from the Economics Observatory | Country-specific background notes: Albania, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Montenegro, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda
Taxation, Information and Withholding: Evidence from Costa Rica [Appendix]
With Marco Hernandez
Coverage from La Nación | Winner of the World Bank Innovation Prize
Taxing Property in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence from Mexico
With Alejandro Estefan, Karina Ramirez and Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato
Transnational Terrorist Recruitment: Evidence from Daesh Personnel Records
With Mohamed Abdel Jelil, Kartika Bhatia, Quy-Toan Do and Clément Joubert
Coverage from Le Monde, Times of Israel, Times of India, Alarabiya, World Bank Blog
Selected Works in Progress
Audit Selection Under Weak Fiscal Capacity: A Field Experiment in Senegal
With Pierre Bachas, Alipio Ferreira and Bassirou Sarr
Supported by two EDI grants (pilot and scale-up)
AEA RCT Registry
Should low-income countries leave discretion to tax inspectors to select firms for audit or should selection be determined by risk-scoring algorithms? Does the optimal amount of discretion depend on the quantity of third-party information available and its ease of access for tax inspectors? In a context with weak fiscal capacity, leveraging inspectors’ private information could be valuable but opens the door to discrimination and corruption. This project tests which selection method (discretionary inspector selection or algorithm selection based on risk scores) is most effective in detecting firm non-compliance and increasing audit yield. An experiment in collaboration with the tax administration in Senegal is currently in the field.
Supported by two EDI grants (pilot and scale-up)
AEA RCT Registry
Should low-income countries leave discretion to tax inspectors to select firms for audit or should selection be determined by risk-scoring algorithms? Does the optimal amount of discretion depend on the quantity of third-party information available and its ease of access for tax inspectors? In a context with weak fiscal capacity, leveraging inspectors’ private information could be valuable but opens the door to discrimination and corruption. This project tests which selection method (discretionary inspector selection or algorithm selection based on risk scores) is most effective in detecting firm non-compliance and increasing audit yield. An experiment in collaboration with the tax administration in Senegal is currently in the field.
Electronic Payment Technology and Tax Compliance: Evidence from a Financial Inclusion Reform
With Magaly Saenz Somarriba
Economic development leads to the expansion of electronic transaction technology such as credit and debit cards. This may increase firms’ tax compliance, as electronically recorded sales are more difficult to hide than cash transactions. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation from a large financial inclusion reform, we study the effect of firm-level incentives (subsidies for the rental fee of credit card machines) and consumer-level incentives (VAT-rebates for payments with a credit/debit card) on technology take-up, firm’s reported sales and tax liability.
Economic development leads to the expansion of electronic transaction technology such as credit and debit cards. This may increase firms’ tax compliance, as electronically recorded sales are more difficult to hide than cash transactions. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation from a large financial inclusion reform, we study the effect of firm-level incentives (subsidies for the rental fee of credit card machines) and consumer-level incentives (VAT-rebates for payments with a credit/debit card) on technology take-up, firm’s reported sales and tax liability.
Fiscal Externalities: Evidence from Tariff Reforms and Domestic Production Networks
With Pierre Bachas, Anders Jensen and Gabriel Tourek