Monica Singhal
Monica Singhal is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her fields of interest include public finance and labor economics. Her current research focuses on behavioral responses to taxation and the determinants of local public spending patterns. She is the recipient of the 2005 National Tax Association Outstanding Dissertation Award. She received a BA and PhD in economics from Harvard University.
Content by Monica Singhal
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Blog post
In-kind transfers as insurance: Evidence from India
While academics and policymakers prefer unconditional cash transfer to the poor, they value in-kind transfers that protect against price fluctuations A fundamental question in the public economics literature, as well as in the practical design of social protection programmes, is whether transfers from the government to the poor should take the form of cash or kind...
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Project
In-kind transfers as insurance
In-kind transfers have historically been an important way in which countries transfer resources to poorer households – the World Bank estimates that 44% of individuals on social safety net programmes around the world receive in-kind transfers. In recent years, however, there has been increasing interest among academics and policymakers in moving toward unconditional cash...
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Publication - Policy Brief
The bigger the better: Using lotteries to identify the allocative efficiency effects of firm size
Governments around the world provide economic incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs are typically favoured in tax and regulatory policy and are often targeted in public procurement and business development programmes. Such policies are based on the belief that SMEs need help to grow out of inefficiently small sizes. Public procurement...
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Publication - Project Report
In-kind transfers as insurance
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Publication - Project Report
Pilot study on effect of political influence on tax payment compliance
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Project
The importance of firm networks: Methods and evidence from transaction-level administrative data
How does the success or failure of one firm depend on its business linkages to other firms? Questions about firm-to-firm economic interactions are largely open because reliable and representative micro-data on firm transactions is hard to come by. We can shine some light on this problem by relying on a novel administrative data set of firm-to-firm transactions in Ecuador....
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Project
Pilot study on effect of political influence connections on tax payment compliance
Limits to fiscal capacity are a major constraint on growth in developing economies. This pilot was conducted as a collection of multiple, parallel scoping exercises that explored the viability of using different data streams to answer the question of whether and to what extent connections with influential people in political, military or bureaucratic circles impact...
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Project
Price risk and poverty
A common feature of markets in many developing economies is a lack of integration. Trade across areas may be hindered by high transportation costs, limited information and communication, and policies that create barriers to trade. As a result, there is substantial variation in prices for basic commodities across space, often even within local geographic areas. Lack of...
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Project
Incidence and efficiency of commodity taxes in developing economies: Evidence from India
A large literature has examined how government programmes, such as spending on health and education, affect poor households in developing countries. There has been much less research on the impacts of the revenue-generating activities of governments on households. While poor households in developing countries generally fall below income tax thresholds, they are subject to...
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Project
Commodity Taxation in India
India’s system of indirect taxation is notoriously fragmented. Since independence, the sales tax has grown to become the most important source of State financing, in part because it is the only major source of tax revenue constitutionally controlled by the States. At the same time, systems in different States have diverged to a great extent in scope, complexity, and...
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Publication - Working Paper
Improving Tax Compliance in Developing Economies: Evidence from Bangladesh (Working Paper)
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Project
Taxpayer recognition programme
Researchers implemented a range of programmes to exploit firms’ interest in social recognition to increase VAT compliance. Exposing information about firms’ tax compliance to their peers can increase tax payment in a cost-effective way. After receiving information about the tax payment status of neighbouring firms, firms in high-compliance areas...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Increasing Tax Compliance through Social Recognition (Policy Brief)
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Publication - Working Paper
Rates, Redistribution and the GST (Working Paper)
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Publication - Working Paper
Distribution of the Commodity Tax Burden in Bihar, 1994-2010 (Working Paper)
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Publication - Working Paper
Commodity Taxation in Bihar, 1994-2012 (Working Paper)
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Publication - Policy Brief
Improving Tax Compliance in Developing Economies: Evidence from Bangladesh (Policy Brief)
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Publication - Working Paper
Improving Tax Compliance in Developing Economies: Evidence from Bangladesh