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After a steady improvement in the fiscal position over the past decade, the standoff over clearance revenues has severely constrained the PA budget, leading to a significant expansion in expenditure arrears. Going forward, however, uncertainty about a resolution for the clearance revenue standoff will weigh on the economy. Over the last two decades, the Palestinian economy has been driven by large inflows of transfers as other sources of growth have been long-hindered by the ongoing Israeli restrictions on movement and access. Under a baseline scenario which assumes a continuation of the Israeli restrictions, persistence of the internal divide between the West Bank and Gaza and a decline in aid levels, the Palestinian economy is expected to slip into a recession in 2020 and 2021, even if additional, one-off transfers from clearance revenues are made. As financial buffers are depleted, the reduced revenues will require sizable cuts in public spending, which in turn would translate in reduced consumption and investment. The decline in growth implies a sizable decline in real per capita income and a rise in poverty. The Palestinian financial sector continues to face substantial risks against the backdrop of the fiscal crisis. The negative impact of the deepening fiscal crisis on the quality of loan portfolios across the banking sector has started to materialize as both non-performing loans and classified loans have been on an upward trajectory. With the severe liquidity shortage facing the PA, it has resorted to domestic banks to finance its needs raising the sector’s exposure to the PA for the first time in a number of years. Banks are also rescheduling outstanding loans held by PA employees who are receiving a reduced salary, compounding the destabilizing effect on the sector. However, the fact that the PA is simultaneously building up an asset in the form of tax revenues not received from the GoI ameliorates the situation as the increased exposure may be seen as a temporary trend. Another cause of concern is a possible disruption in Correspondent Banking Relationships (CBRs) between Palestinian banks and their Israeli counterparts due to de-risking by Israeli banks. The immunity and indemnity package given by the GoI to banks with CBRs are set to expire in May 2020 and February 2021, respectively, when a longer term and more sustainable intervention is expected to be in place. While resolving the fiscal crisis is an immediate priority there remains a broader reform agenda to improve the economy and Palestinian living standards.

This study attempts to estimate tax compliance costs and assess views of taxpayers on aspects of the tax system in Ethiopia. The study uses evidence mainly from a survey of both formal and informal businesses in Addis Ababa and four major cities (Adama, Hawassa, Mekele, and Bahir Dar) in the four largest regional states. The survey covered 1003 formal businesses and 499 informal businesses. Survey questionnaires were informed by the results of four focus group discussions conducted in Addis Ababa and Adama. The findings of the study are expected to offer tax policy makers and tax administrators an opportunity to pinpoint specific problems to help reduce the cost of complying with tax policies and procedures, thus improving the revenue performance and also the efficiency and business-friendliness of the tax system. The report is organized in four sections. The first part presents an overview of the Ethiopian tax system and recent reform initiatives; second section discusses the research objectives and the methods employed. Section three presents results of the survey while section four presents conclusions and recommendations.

In April 2014, the Government of Benin launched the entreprenant status, a simplified and free legal regime offered to small informal businesses to enter the formal economy. This paper presents the short-term results of a randomized impact evaluation testing three different versions of the entreprenant status on business registration decisions, each version including incremental incentives to registration: (i) information on the new legal status and its benefits, (ii) business training, counseling services, and support to open a bank account, (iii) tax mediation services. The study included 3,600 informal businesses operating with a fixed location in Cotonou, Benin, which were randomly allocated between three treatment groups and one control group. One year after the program launch, all versions of the program had significant impact on formalization rates. The impact was 9.1 percentage points in the first treatment group; 13 percentage points in the second group; and 15.8 percentage points in the last group. The program had a higher impact on male business owners, with more education, operating outside Dantokpa Market, in sectors other than trade, and that before being offered the incentives to formalization had characteristics similar to businesses that were already formal. Data from a second follow-up survey, which is expected to take place in March 2016, will explore the impacts on other outcomes, like business performances or access to banking.

Poland’s economic growth over the last 25 years has been spectacular. In that period, Poland has more than doubled its income per capita and became a European growth champion. It was the only EU country to avoid a recession in 2009. Its current GDP growth rate is strong. Poland seems to be on the brink of its new ‘golden age.’ Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the first subnational report of the Doing Business series in Poland. It measures business regulations and their enforcement from the perspective of a small to medium-size domestic firm. The idea is a simple one: if entrepreneurs spend fewer resources on regulatory burdens, they will have more time to devote to productive activities. If laws and regulations are clear, accessible, and transparent and, at the same time, enforceable before the courts, entrepreneurs will feel more confident to do business with people they don’t know, and expand their client and supplier network. The gap between the 18 cities benchmarked is significant. By adopting existing good practices found across the country in the four areas measured by this report, Poland would rank 24th out of 189 economies globally, eight positions higher than Poland’s current ranking according to Doing Business 2015, placing the country ahead of France and the Netherlands. Promoting convergence among regions and cities towards the top performers and thus improving the ease of doing business in the whole country is a challenge worth taking.

This paper examines the effect of finance on long-term economic growth using Bayesian model averaging to address model uncertainty in cross-country growth regressions. The literature largely focuses on financial indicators that assess the financial depth of banks and stock markets. These indicators are examined jointly with newly developed indicators that assess the stability and efficiency of financial markets. Once the finance-growth regressions are subjected to model uncertainty,the results suggest that commonly used indicators of financial development are not robustly related to long-term growth. However, the findings from the global sample indicate that one newly developed indicator -- the efficiency of financial intermediaries -- is robustly related to long-term growth.

The Timor-Leste health resource tracking study was undertaken in order to improve the flow of critical cash and in-kind resources to districts and health centers by identifying, and proposing how to relieve, the most critical impediments in the public financial management (PFM) cycle. The study follows these three inputs backwards through every stage of the PFM cycle in order to unearth the pertinent issues that impede the timely and sufficient delivery of inputs to frontline providers. It required the collection of data from a wide variety of sources and the use of diverse methodological approaches, including semi-structured district- and facility level surveys, one-to-one interviews, transaction analysis, document review, and analysis of the government's financial management information system (FMIS). The study findings are presented in detail, together with the supporting evidence and key related recommendations, in chapter one, operating cash, chapter two, fuel budget, and chapter three, vehicle repairs and maintenance. Chapter four presents a set of cross-cutting findings that affect all areas of the goods and service budget.

This is the final consolidated report of an extensive program to assess the financial performance and capacity building needs of the UPK Revolving Loan Funds under the PNPM Mandiri project. As explained in the report, the assessment program covered 508 rural and urban UPKs in the provinces of Central Java, Yogyakarta, Nusa Tenggara Timor and West Sumatra. The aim was to cover 30 percent of rural UPK RLFs in these four provinces and 10 percent of the urban UPKs in order to establish the achievements and determine areas of improvement to enable these UPKs to provide a better service to the low income families in their operational areas. This report covers all 267 rural UPK RLFs and 241 urban UPKs identified for the purpose in the four provinces.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Finland. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January- December 2010). The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Bangladesh. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January- December 2010). The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.

Doing business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports doing business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the doing business indicators for Poland. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January-December 2010).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 10 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 183 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over time. This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Azerbaijan. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2011 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January- December 2010). The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.

The Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) and the Superintendence of Financial Entities (SEFyC) are to be commended on their thorough supervision, their implementation of risk-based supervision, and their thorough examination process. Since the 2001-2002 crises, financial sector indicators have improved significantly and the banking system weathered well the impact of the global financial crisis, with high capital levels, the introduction of a capital buffer, and low Non-Performing Loans (NPLs). This assessment of the state of compliance with the Basel Core Principles (BCPs) in Argentina has been undertaken as part of a World Bank Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) mission. The assessment was conducted from May 11 to 26, 2011. It reflects the banking supervision practices of the BCRA as of the end of April 2011. The assessment is based on the following sources: (i) a complete self-assessment prepared by the BCRA; (ii) detailed interviews with the BCRA staff; (iii) review of laws, regulations, and other documentation on the supervisory framework and on the structure and development of the Argentine banking sector; and (iv) meetings with individual banks, the banking associations, the Ministry of Economy and Public Finance (MECON), external auditors, and financial think tanks. This assessment is based solely on the laws, supervisory requirements, and practices that were in place at the time it was conducted.

This assessment finds that Argentina has made significant progress to improve its securities regulatory system within the existing legal framework. Specifically, Argentina operates a highly, even uniquely, transparent securities regulatory program. The assessment also finds that the Argentine securities regulator has dedicated professional staff, active on-site inspection programs, pro-active investigation of complaints, a road map to transition by 2012 to international accounting standards (IFRS) and plans to modernize auditing standards, the ability to assist foreign regulatory authorities to the extent of its current powers, and a commitment to use the powers it has to meet its mandate, achieve international benchmarks, and build on its practical experience to strengthen regulatory oversight. At the same time this assessment finds areas, of which the securities regulator is well aware, that need to be improved. These include that: (i) the complex structure of the market may be a source of inefficiency and an impediment to price formation and best execution; (ii) the regulator has insufficient administrative power to oversee comprehensively the regulatory performance by certain self-regulatory organizations affecting equity and private debt markets with respect to their members and to supervise, discipline and enforce its rules and the securities laws over such members directly; (iii) the ability to cooperate domestically and with foreign regulators is constrained by securities and banking secrecy law; (iv) the legal underpinning for protecting customer funds held by intermediaries needs enhancements; (iv) there are no existing market disruption contingency plans at the regulatory level; and (v) the markets offer some products that may require additional, tailored monitoring and explanation to external participants. This assessment of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) objective and principles of securities regulation was conducted between May 11 and May 26, 2011 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and includes references to certain post on-site improvements. The assessment included a review of the main securities laws, executive decrees, and general resolutions that relate to the mandate of the Comision Nacional de Valores (CNV) and underpin the public offer and trading of securities in Argentina.

In fiscal year 2010-11, India's economy has expanded at a rate close to that observed prior to the global financial crisis. However, growth in the second half of the year slowed, and the performance of industry and investment has been particularly disappointing. Despite some fiscal consolidation and monetary tightening, inflation has emerged as a serious concern because of its effects on the poor, who are usually less able to protect themselves against rising prices, and because of its dampening effects on long-term investment, which is sensitive to interest rate expectations. India's economic growth reached 8.5 percent, helped by a strong rebound of the agriculture sector because of good rains in the 2010 monsoon season against the near-drought conditions of 2009. On the external side, exports staged an extraordinary recovery and the current account deficit narrowed, while capital flows slowed driven by a pronounced decline in foreign direct investment. Foreign institutional investment remained robust, however, and external borrowing increased to compensate partially for the decline in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The rupee remained stable against the U.S. dollar but showed a small real appreciation against a 36-currency trade weighted index, and Reserve Bank of India foreign reserves increased to more than $310 billion. The central government budget deficit for FY2010-11 is estimated to have reached 6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an important contraction from the widened fiscal stance of FY2009-10. Budget implementation benefited from higher-than-expected growth in nominal GDP and related higher tax intake; although the tax-to-GDP ratio is still significantly lower than in FY2007-08. The spending-to-GDP ratio, on the other hand, was reduced by 0.7 percent of GDP despite two supplementary demands for grants.

The thirteenth government of the Palestinian Authority (PA) presented in August 2009 a program entitled Palestine: ending the occupation, establishing the state (hereafter referred to as the program) that lays out the vision, foundational principles, and national goals for the future Palestinian state, as well as institution-building and sector priorities. This report will therefore begin by discussing recent trends in the economic restrictions imposed by the Government of Israel (GoI) on West Bank and Gaza (WB&G). The next section will focus on an analysis of economic and fiscal developments, highlighting the fact that WB&G experienced in 2009 a third consecutive year of economic growth and rising per capita GDP, driven by large inflows of external assistance and a relatively stable security situation. Despite the growth, however, the recurrent deficit rose from roughly US$1.3 billion in 2008 to US$1.6 billion on a commitment basis in 2009, mostly as a result of emergency spending in Gaza in the aftermath of Israel s military operation (operation cast lead, December 27, 2008, January 18, 2009) as well as arrears brought forward from 2008 and recognized as commitments in 2009. Given this finding, the discussion in remainder of the report is particularly relevant, focusing on the reform areas of fiscal strengthening and improved public financial management and the important role played by local governments in this regard.