Societal Institutions and Tax Effort in Developing Countries

Richard Bird, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez () and Benno Torgler

International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU from International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Abstract: “Will underdeveloped countries learn to tax?” asked Nicholas Kaldor (1963), forty years ago. Underlying this question is the assumption that if a country wishes to become ‘developed’ it needs to collect in taxes an amount greater than the 10-15 percent found in many developing countries. Kaldor’s answer to his question was essentially that since even the poorest country had sufficient ‘capacity’ in both economic and administrative terms to tax more, whether or not a particular country did so depended primarily on its political institutions. Would developing countries be fortunate enough to have those with political power voluntarily give up at least some of their power to block fiscal reform in exchange for social stability? Or would the ruling groups rather wait (in the spirit of après moi le deluge) for the revolutionary upheaval that he considered the only alternative?

Keywords: Societal Institutions; Tax Effort; Developing Countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2004-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-pbe, nep-pke, nep-pol and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (81)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Societal Institutions and Tax Effort in Developing Countries (2014)
Working Paper: Societal Institutions and Tax Effort in Developing Countries (2008)
Working Paper: Societal Institutions and Tax Effort in Developing Countries (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0406

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