Building Fiscal Capacity in Developing Countries: Evidence on the Role of Information Technology

Merima Ali, Abdulaziz B. Shifa, Abebe Abebe and Firew Woldeyes

National Tax Journal, 2021, vol. 74, issue 3, 591 - 620

Abstract: Weak fiscal capacity is a major challenge in low-income countries. Recently, governments have adopted information technology to modernize tax collection; however, there is little evidence on the impact of such reforms. We narrow this gap using unique administrative firm-level panel data covering all business taxpayers in Ethiopia. We find a robust increase in value-added tax collections and reported sales following the adoption of electronic sales register machines (ESRMs), without decreasing formal employment. These effects are larger among downstream firms. ESRM adoption is also associated with a decrease in entry into downstream sectors.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/715511 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/715511 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
Working Paper: Building fiscal capacity in developing countries: Evidence on the role of information technology (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:nattax:doi:10.1086/715511

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in National Tax Journal from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().