Fiscal capacity and government accountability in sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract
Historical evidence from the developed world suggests that the expansion of the mod- ern states’ fiscal capacity (i. e. its ability to tax citizens) eventually led to more democratic and less corrupt governments. Since sub-Saharan African countries are currently in a pro- cess of state building, we study whether a positive effect of fiscal capacity on government accountability prevails in contemporaneous sub-Saharan Africa, too. We conduct the em- pirical analysis with data covering 23 African countries over the 1960-2008 period. The results suggest that fiscal capacity increases government accountability in sub-Saharan Africa.Download Info
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Paper provided by University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers in Economics with number 506.Length: 34 pages
Date of creation: 15 Jun 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0506
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Phone: 031-773 10 00
Web page: http://www.handels.gu.se/econ/
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Related research
Keywords: Fiscal capacity; taxation; government accountability; democracy;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
- O23 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
- P14 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Property Rights
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-AFR-2011-06-25 (Africa)
- NEP-ALL-2011-06-25 (All new papers)
- NEP-PBE-2011-06-25 (Public Economics)
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Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Libman, Alexander & Schultz, André & Graeber, Thomas, 2011. "Tax return as a political statement," Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series 169, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
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