Jaime De Melo

David W. Roland-Holst

Mona Haddad

If Madagascar moved toward a simpler, uniform tax structure, it could raise the same revenues it now raises - with less incentive for the tax evasion and smuggling now prevalent.

General Equilibrium Estimates for Madagascar

Tax Evasion and Tax Reform in a Low-income Economy

Jean-Marie Grether

Nicole A. Mathys

This paper contributes to the debate on the existence of pollution haven effects by systematically measuring the pollution content of trade (measured by the pollution content of imports, PCI) and decomposing it into three components-a "deep" component (unrelated to the environmental debate but including variables traditionally present in the gravity model) and two components (factor endowments and environmental policies) that occupy center stage in the debate on trade and the environment. The decomposition is carried out for 1986-88 for an extensive data set covering 10 pollutants, 48 countries, and 79 ISIC 4-digit sectors. Illustrative decompositions presented for three of the 10 pollutants in the data set indicate a significant pollution haven effect which increases the PCI of the North because of stricter environmental regulations in the North. At the same time, the factor endowment effect decreases the PCI of the North as the North is relatively well-endowed in capital and pollution-intensive activities are also capital-intensive. On a global scale, because the bulk of trade is intraregional with a high North-North share, these effects are small relative to the "deep" determinants of the worldwide pollution content of trade. In sum, although the impact has been stronger on vertical (North-South) trade flows, differences in factor endowments and environmental policies have only marginally affected the pollution content of world trade during the 1986-88 period.

Unraveling the Worldwide Pollution Haven Effect

Arvind Panagariya

Claudio Montenegro

Regional integration arrangements are more likely to be a stepping stone toward a freer world trading system if GATT rules are strengthened - and if developing countries enter into arrangements with developed rather than other developing countries.

Regional Integration Old and New

Olivier Cadot

Laure Dutoit

"This paper explores how the elimination of Madagascar's Marketing Board in 1995 affected prices paid to farmers, incentives, and regional indicators of poverty and inequality. After steadily losing market share, Madagascar has been able to regain some of the lost ground since the mid-1990s. Margins between freight on board (FOB) and farmgate prices have spectacularly narrowed down, but this effect is dwarfed by that of world-price volatility. A counterfactual analysis based on a model of Cournot competition between vanilla traders suggests that whatever limited competition there is among them has contributed to raise purchase prices and the cash income of vanilla farmers. But the effect on farmers' consumption remains small because a large part of it is self-consumed. The effect on aggregate measures of poverty and inequality is even smaller, even at the regional level. After taking into account the reduction in Madagascar's monopoly power on the world vanilla market implied by the elimination of the Marketing Board, the induced rise in producer prices is estimated to have lifted about 20,000 individuals out of poverty. "--World Bank web site.

Jaime De Melo

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