As Governments expanded their activities over the years, pushing spending from around 10 per cent of GDP at the beginning of the last century to the current levels of 30 to 50 per cent of GDP, while increasing intervention through regulations, they tended to lose much of their ability to monitor well what they did. This led to problems of corruption, inefficiency, rent seeking, cronyism, and generally less equitable results in terms of economic results and income distribution.
Professor Vito Tanzi will present and discuss the challenge of complexity in governments and markets in tax, spending and regulation.
This event is co-presented by the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute and the Development Policy Centre.
Professor Vito Tanzi obtained his PhD in Economics from Harvard University and was subsequently a Professor at American University before becoming head of Tax Policy in the International Monetary Fund from 1974 to 1981, and Director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of International Monetary Fund from 1981 to 2000. He was State Secretary for Economy and Finance in the Italian Government and Senior Consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank. He is recipient of numerous awards and honours and has published widely on public finance, tax, expenditure and regulation for developed and developing countries.