Research

The Bangladesh Public Administration Project conducts policy relevant research aimed addressing core development challenges Bangladesh faces as it works towards national economic and sustainability goals.

We are actively researching the following topics:

Bangladesh’s Macroeconomic Challenges

Malcolm McPherson, Principal Investigator

The 2024 social unrest and government transition in Bangladesh has accentuated a macroeconomic crisis that has been brewing for decades. The challenge facing the Interim Government is to stabilize the economy so that it can recover. For that, its economic managers need to address four long-standing problems: chronically high inflation; an overvalued real exchange rate; an inefficient budget process; and persistently low revenue mobilization. We conclude this will require the implementation of four time-tested reforms: reducing the budget deficit, floating the currency, formulating a “credible” budget, and raising the tax-to-GDP ratio. Without such reforms, it is unlikely the economy will recover, let alone lay the foundation for the rapid economic and sustainable inclusive growth laid forth in Bangladesh’s national plans. Our research examines how, by whom, and in what sequence the needed reforms can be implemented and sustained.

Clean Energy Adaptation

Edward Cunningham, Principal Investigator

In two complementary policy papers, we analyze Bangladesh’s pathways for achieving its clean energy and related workforce development goals, examining both domestic opportunities and challenges while drawing lessons from U.S. state experiences. The first paper provides an analysis of Bangladesh’s solar sector, offering eight strategic interventions including renewable energy targets, purchase obligations, net metering expansion, and financing mechanisms, while emphasizing the critical need for institutional coordination and accountability. The second paper complements this analysis by examining four distinct U.S. state approaches to clean energy expansion – Texas’s deployment model, Georgia’s manufacturing strategy, Massachusetts’s innovation ecosystem, and New York’s comprehensive approach – to inform Bangladeshi policies related to clean energy workforce development. The paper concludes that Bangladesh should adopt elements of New York’s comprehensive strategy while building on its existing industrial strengths, particularly in textile manufacturing, and developing targeted policies to foster innovation, enhance supply chain opportunities, and deploy clean energy projects. This recommended approach would require substantial national investment, international support, and private sector engagement, guided by a rigorous SWOT analysis to ensure effective implementation within Bangladesh’s unique context.

Tax System Digitalization to Enhance Revenue Mobilization

Jay Rosengard, Principal Investigator

Building on what is already known about Bangladesh’s revenue mobilization efforts, particularly policy distortions and implementation weaknesses which have resulted in a persistently low tax-to-GDP ratio, this research explores a potentially high-impact administrative reform: tax system digitalization to enhance revenue mobilization. Tax system digitalization offers many potential benefits that collectively could quickly and significantly increase tax revenue. These enhancements include more cost-effective National Board of Revenue tax administration from updated Information and Communication Technologies, as well greater taxpayer voluntary compliance due to lower taxpayer compliance costs coupled with a more credible threat of sanctions for non-compliance. Tax system digitalization also has the advantage that gains are not predicated on promulgating accompanying tax policy reforms, although such reforms would certainly accelerate and amplify the impact of this initiative. Nonetheless, tax system digitalization is not without its challenges, for example mitigating tax data security and privacy risks, protecting taxpayer rights, and accommodating digital divides. This research places Bangladesh in a comparative perspective, both with peer countries and in the context of a Principal Investigator-led global study of tax system digitalization in emerging markets, focusing on three detailed case studies (Indonesia, Mexico, and Rwanda) whose mixed success offer lessons that might help to better inform tax system digitalization in Bangladesh.