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We are pleased to announce the 8th World Bank/ODI Global/IFS Public Finance Conference, to be held in Washington DC on September 24–25, 2026. This annual event brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss frontier research on public finance, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs).
 

The 2026 conference will feature sessions on tax compliance and administration, economic transformation, social protection across the life cycle, government effectiveness, behavioral responses to taxes and subsidies, and firm responses to public policy and corporate taxation.  The agenda also features two special sessions on VAT and AI on the fiscal frontier, highlighting recent research and emerging policy developments in these areas.
 

Keynote Address
 

We are pleased to feature Nathaniel Hendren, Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, as our keynote speaker. 
 

Format
 

The conference will take place in person in Washington DC on September 24-25, 2026 with streaming available for non-presenting attendees. 
 

You can find the conference program on the Agenda tab. 
 

Academic Committee: Laura Abramovsky, Pierre Bachas, Anne Brockmeyer, Rishabh Choudhary, Lucie Gadenne, Pablo Garriga, François Gerard, Hazel Granger, Christopher Hoy, Justine Knebelmann, Kyle McNabb, Joana Naritomi, Panayiotis Nicolaides, Marina Ngoma, Oyebola Okunogbe, Thiago Scot, Mahvish Shaukat, Dario Tortarolo, Yani Tyskerud, Ben Waltmann, Mazhar Waseem. 

Day 1 - Thursday, September 24, 2026
8:30 –9:00 AM Registration and Coffee
9:00 – 9:10 AM Opening Remarks, Manuela Francisco (World Bank)
9:10 – 10:25 AM

Special Session 1: Designing VAT for the Fiscal Frontier 
Chair: Stefano Curto (World Bank)

 

  1. Equity versus Efficiency of Indirect Taxes: Evidence from a Large Reform in India (Pierre Bachas, World Bank)

  2. The Panopticon Taxman: The Impact of E-Invoicing on VAT compliance in Uganda (Maria Jouste, UNU-Wider)

  3. Policy Panel: 

    Munkhshur Chimed, Tax Policy Department, Ministry of Finance of Mongolia 

    Dachi Kinkladze, Georgia Revenue Service 

    Michael Masiya, Malawi Revenue Authority

    Ann Njoroge, Kenya Revenue Authority
10:25 – 10:45 AM Coffee Break
10:45 AM – 12:00 PM

Session 1: Economic Transformation

Chair: Arti Grover (World Bank)

 

  1. Government Redistribution and Global Poverty Reduction (Amory Gethin, World Bank) 

    Discussant: Garance Genicot, Georgetown University

  2. Disruptive Power: The Spatial Diffusion of Distributed Solar in South Africa (Yifan Wang, London School of Economics)

    Discussant: Megan Lang, World Bank

  3. Homeownership Hinders Entrepreneurship: Evidence from a Housing Lottery (Guilherme Junqueira, University of Florida)

    Discussant: Caio Piza, World Bank
12:00 – 1:00 PM

Keynote Session: Measuring the Welfare Impacts of Government Policies

Chair: Aaditya Mattoo (World Bank)

Nathaniel Hendren, Ford Professor of Economics, MIT
1:00 – 2:00 PM Lunch
2:00 – 3:15 PM

Session 2: Making Government Work 

Chair: Serdar Yilmaz (World Bank)

 

  1.  State Capacity and Access to Social Insurance: Evidence from Brazil (Gabriel Lemos, MIT Sloan)

    Discussant: Alessandra Fenizia, George Washington University 

  2. Scaling Fiscal Capacity: Evidence from Senegal’s Capital City (Justine Knebelmann, Sciences Po)

    Discussant: Lucy Martin, University of North Carolina

  3. The (Fiscal) Dividend of Infrastructure: Roads and Revenues in Rwanda (Aimable Nsabimana, IFC)

    Discussant: Kavya Ravindranath, George Washington University
3:15 – 4:15 PM

Fire Session 1: Social Protection Across the Life Cycle

Chair: Gabriela Inchauste, World Bank

 

  1. Medium-Term Impacts of Integrated Social Safety Nets: Cash Transfers, Information Meetings, and Home Visits for Child Development (Damien de Walque, World Bank) 

  2. Job Loss, Unemployment Insurance, and Health: Evidence from Brazil (Alexandre Fonseca, Federal Revenue of Brazil) 

  3. Who Benefits from Food Tax Exemptions in Lower-Income Settings? Evidence on Pass-Through and Incidence (Christopher Hoy, University of Melbourne)

  4. The Fiscal Cost of Aging in a Developing Country with Informality (Andres Zambrano, World Bank)
4:15 – 4:35 PM Coffee Break
4:35 – 6:00 PM

Session 3: Behavioral Responses to Taxes and Subsidies

Chair: David Phillips (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

 

  1. Wage Subsidies to Promote Female Hiring: Evidence from Pakistan (Jean Nahrae Lee, World Bank)

  2. Are the Rich More Sensitive to Taxes? Evidence from Mexico City (Vedanth Nair, Institute for Fiscal Studies)

    Discussant: Daniel Reck, University of Maryland

  3. Taxing Mobile Money: Theory and Evidence (Michael Barczay, International Monetary Fund) 

    Discussant: Dario Tortarolo, World Bank

  4. Unlocking Fiscal Capacity: Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone (Pablo M. Guzmán Lizardo, Stanford)

    Discussant: Andrea Lopez-Luzuriaga, Inter American Development Bank

 

Day 2 - Friday, September 25, 2026
8:30 –9:00 AM Coffee
9:00 – 10:15 AM

Special Session 2: AI on the Fiscal Frontier
Chair: Ceren Ozer (World Bank)
 

  1. Nudging Compliance: Experimental Evidence from an AI-Powered Compliance Risk Management System at the Federal Board of Revenue, Pakistan (Zehra Farooq, Federal Board of Revenue Pakistan)

  2. AI and Labor Market Regulations: Evidence from an Experiment on the Political Economy of Reforms (Carlos Scartascini, Inter-American Development Bank)

  3. Policy Panel:

    Francis Amamkwa-Poku, Revenue Policy Division, Ministry of Finance of Ghana 
    Abbosbek Juraev, Institute of Fiscal Studies, Ministry of Economy and Finance of Uzbekistan 
10:15 – 10:45 AM Coffee Break
10:45 AM – 12:00 PM

Session 4: Firm Behavior and Public Policy 

Chair: Marcio Cruz (World Bank)

 

  1. Kamikazes In Public Procurement: Bid-Rigging and Real Non-Market Outcomes (Dimas Fazio, National University of Singapore)

    Discussant: Cezar Santos, Inter American Development Bank

  2. Forgiveness or Loophole? Evaluating the Effect of Zambia’s Tax Amnesty Programme on Compliance (Jonathan Msoni, Zambia Revenue Authority)

    Discussant: Jose Larios, Georgia State University

  3. Quality Screening through Market Access: Evidence from Rwanda's Public Procurement (Nicolas Jimenez, Yale)

 
12:00 – 1:00 PM

Fire-Session 2: Firm Responses to Corporate Taxation

Chair: Li Liu (International Monetary Fund)

 

  1. Thresholds, Concentration, and Bunching: A First Look at Nigeria's Corporate Tax Data (Aisha Mahmoud Hamman, Nigeria Revenue Authority)

  2. Notch and Catch: Dynamic Inefficiency in the Corporate Income Tax Schedule (Luming Chen, University of Michigan)

  3. Commercial Property Taxes, Firm Behavior, and Fiscal Externalities (Nathan Sunday, University of Michigan)

  4. Tax Incentives and Investment in Credit-Constrained Firms: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Ethiopian Manufacturing, 1996-2017 (Victor Steenbergen, World Bank)
1:00 – 1:15 PM Closing Remarks
1:15 PM Conference Adjourns