IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2021-175.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

No taxation without property rights: Formalization of property rights on land and tax revenues from individuals in sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Marina Nistotskaya
  • Michelle D'Arcy

Abstract

The arguments that property rights and taxation positively affect development are well established in separate literatures, but the link between property rights and taxation is under-studied. To address this gap, we theorize that formalization of individual property rights facilitates economic exchange at scale, providing a viable opportunity for individuals to improve their economic standing, in exchange for which property owners assent to pay taxes. We illustrate the argument by comparing the historical evolution of tax states in early modern Europe and colonial Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Marina Nistotskaya & Michelle D'Arcy, 2021. "No taxation without property rights: Formalization of property rights on land and tax revenues from individuals in sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-175, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2021-175-no-taxation-without-property-rights.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2017. "1688 and all that: property rights, the Glorious Revolution and the rise of British capitalism," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 79-107, March.
    2. Bateson, Regina, 2012. "Crime Victimization and Political Participation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(3), pages 570-587, August.
    3. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2010. "Property Rights and Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4525-4595, Elsevier.
    4. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2009. "The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1218-1244, September.
    5. Thandika Mkandawire, 2010. "On Tax Efforts and Colonial Heritage in Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1647-1669.
    6. Kara Dimitruk, 2018. "“I Intend Therefore to Prorogue”: the effects of political conflict and the Glorious Revolution in parliament, 1660–1702 [Electoral competition with informed and uninformed voters]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 22(3), pages 261-297.
    7. Ch, Rafael & Shapiro, Jacob & Steele, Abbey & Vargas, Juan F., 2018. "Endogenous Taxation in Ongoing Internal Conflict: The Case of Colombia," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 996-1015, November.
    8. repec:cep:stieop:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Pelle Ahlerup & Thushyanthan Baskaran & Arne Bigsten, 2015. "Tax Innovations and Public Revenues in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 689-706, June.
    10. Colin, Jean-Philippe, 2008. "Disentangling intra-kinship property rights in land: a contribution of economic ethnography to land economics in Africa," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 231-254, August.
    11. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2014. "Why Do Developing Countries Tax So Little?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 99-120, Fall.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    13. Ross, Michael L., 2004. "Does Taxation Lead to Representation?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(2), pages 229-249, April.
    14. Crivelli, Ernesto & Gupta, Sanjeev, 2014. "Resource blessing, revenue curse? Domestic revenue effort in resource-rich countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 88-101.
    15. Acharya, Avidit & Blackwell, Matthew & Sen, Maya, 2016. "Explaining Causal Findings Without Bias: Detecting and Assessing Direct Effects," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 512-529, August.
    16. Bird, Richard M. & Zolt, Eric M., 2008. "Technology and Taxation in Developing Countries: From Hand to Mouse," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 61(4), pages 791-821, December.
    17. Lange, Matthew, 2009. "Lineages of Despotism and Development," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226470702, September.
    18. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer, 2005. "History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1190-1213, September.
    19. Frankema, Ewout, 2011. "Colonial taxation and government spending in British Africa, 1880-1940: Maximizing revenue or minimizing effort?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 136-149, January.
    20. Merima Ali & Odd-Helge Fjeldstad & Boqian Jiang & Abdulaziz B Shifa, 2019. "Colonial Legacy, State-building and the Salience of Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1048-1081.
    21. Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2010. "Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 700-729, October.
    22. Yoo, Dongwoo & Steckel, Richard H., 2016. "Property rights and economic development: the legacy of Japanese colonial institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 623-650, September.
    23. Catherine Boone, 2017. "Legal empowerment of the poor through property rights reform: Tensions and trade-offs of land registration and titling in sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-37, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    24. Richard M. Bird & Eric M. Zolt, 2005. "Redistribution via Taxation: The Limited Role of the Personal Income Tax in Developing Countries (2005)," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0507, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    25. Catherine Boone, 2017. "Legal empowerment of the poor through property rights reform: Tensions and trade-offs of land registration and titling in sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 037, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    26. Brautigam,Deborah & Fjeldstad,Odd-Helge & Moore,Mick (ed.), 2008. "Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521888158.
    27. Cardoso,José Luís & Lains,Pedro (ed.), 2010. "Paying for the Liberal State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521518529.
    28. Frankema, Ewout, 2010. "Raising revenue in the British empire, 1870–1940: how ‘extractive’ were colonial taxes?," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(3), pages 447-477, November.
    29. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    30. Andersson, Jens & Lazuka, Volha, 2019. "Long-term drivers of taxation in francophone West Africa 1893–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 294-313.
    31. Melissa Dell & Benjamin A Olken, 2020. "The Development Effects of the Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System in Java," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 164-203.
    32. Catherine Boone, 2019. "Legal Empowerment of the Poor through Property Rights Reform: Tensions and Trade-offs of Land Registration and Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(3), pages 384-400, March.
    33. Persson, Torsten & Besley, Tim, 2013. "Taxation and Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 9307, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    34. Zouache, Abdallah, 2018. "Institutions and the colonisation of Africa: some lessons from French colonial economics," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 373-391, April.
    35. Jahnke, Björn & Weisser, Reinhard A., 2019. "How does petty corruption affect tax morale in Sub-Saharan Africa?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    36. Bird, Richard M. & Zolt, Eric M., 2005. "The limited role of the personal income tax in developing countries," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 928-946, December.
    37. Duane Swank, 2016. "The new political economy of taxation in the developing world," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 185-207, April.
    38. Roel Dom, 2019. "Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authorities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Silver Bullet or White Elephant," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(7), pages 1418-1435, July.
    39. N/A, 2005. "The World Economy," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 191(1), pages 8-30, January.
    40. Armin von Schiller, 2018. "Party System Institutionalization and Reliance on Personal Income Taxation in Developing Countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 274-301, March.
    41. Esarey, Justin & Menger, Andrew, 2019. "Practical and Effective Approaches to Dealing With Clustered Data," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 541-559, July.
    42. Dickerman, Carol W. & Barnes, Grenville & Bruce, John W. & Green, Joy K. & Myers, Gregory W. & Polishuk, Richard & Stienbarger, Douglas & Sund, Andrew, 1989. "Security of Tenure and Land Registration in Africa: Literature Review and Synthesis," LTC Papers 12762, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Land Tenure Center.
    43. Brautigam,Deborah & Fjeldstad,Odd-Helge & Moore,Mick (ed.), 2008. "Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521716192.
    44. Zebong, Nyah & Fish, Paul & Prichard, Wilson, 2017. "Valuation for Property Tax Purposes," Working Papers 13500, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    45. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2017. "1688 and all that: property rights, the Glorious Revolution and the rise of British capitalism," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 79-107, March.
    46. Emenalo, Chukwunonye O. & Gagliardi, Francesca & Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2018. "Historical institutional determinants of financial system development in Africa," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 345-372, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gwaindepi, Abel, 2019. "Domestic revenue mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America: A comparative analysis since 1980," Lund Papers in Economic History 209, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    2. Broms, Rasmus, 2017. "Colonial Revenue Extraction and Modern Day Government Quality in the British Empire," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 269-280.
    3. von Haldenwang, Christian, 2020. "Digitalising the fiscal contract: An interdisciplinary framework for empirical inquiry," IDOS Discussion Papers 20/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    4. Andersson, Jens & Lazuka, Volha, 2019. "Long-term drivers of taxation in francophone West Africa 1893–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 294-313.
    5. Abel Gwaindepi, 2021. "Domestic revenue mobilisation in developing countries: An exploratory analysis of sub‐Saharan Africa and Latin America," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 396-421, March.
    6. Tania Masi & Antonio Savoia & Kunal Sen, 2020. "Is there a fiscal resource curse? Resource rents, fiscal capacity, and political institutions in developing economies," WIDER Working Paper Series wp2020-10, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Ane Karoline Bak & Matilde Jeppesen & Anne Mette Kjær, 2021. "Fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa: conceptualization and empirical trends," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-182, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Masi, Tania & Savoia, Antonio & Sen, Kunal, 2024. "Is there a fiscal resource curse? Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    9. Grier, Robin & Young, Andrew T. & Grier, Kevin, 2022. "The causal effects of rule of law & property rights on fiscal capacity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Esteban Muñoz-Sobrado & Amedeo Piolatto & Antoine Zerbini & Federica Braccioli, 2024. "The Taxing Challenges of the State: Unveiling the Role of Fiscal & Administrative Capacity in Development," Working Papers 1432, Barcelona School of Economics.
    11. Abrams M.E. Tagem & Oliver Morrissey, 2021. "What are the drivers of tax capacity in sub-Saharan Africa?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-161, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Ricciuti, Roberto & Savoia, Antonio & Sen, Kunal, 2019. "How do political institutions affect fiscal capacity? Explaining taxation in developing economies," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 351-380, April.
    13. Olusegun Ayodele Akanbi, 2019. "State Institutions and Tax Capacity: An Empirical Investigation of Causality," IMF Working Papers 2019/177, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Merima Ali & Odd-Helge Fjeldstad & Boqian Jiang & Abdulaziz B Shifa, 2019. "Colonial Legacy, State-building and the Salience of Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(619), pages 1048-1081.
    15. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2014. "Under the Thumb of History? Political Institutions and the Scope for Action," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 951-971, August.
    16. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    17. Savoia, Antonio & Sen, Kunal & Tagem, Abrams M. E., 2023. "Constraints on the executive and tax revenues in the long run," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 314-331, June.
    18. Kodjo Adandohoin & Jean-Francois Brun, 2020. "Are incomes and property taxes effective instruments for tax transition?," Working Papers hal-03053683, HAL.
    19. Prichard, Wilson, 2016. "Electoral Competitiveness, Tax Bargaining and Political Incentives in Developing Countries: Evidence from Political Budget Cycles Affecting Taxation," Working Papers 13713, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    20. Fairfield, Tasha, 2013. "Going Where the Money Is: Strategies for Taxing Economic Elites in Unequal Democracies," Working Papers 13735, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Property rights; Taxation; Sub-Saharan Africa; Afrobarometer;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2021-175. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.