IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v19y2007i8p1114-1130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A poverty-focused evaluation of commodity tax options

Author

Listed:
  • B. Essama-Nssah

    (Poverty Reduction Group, The World Bank, NW, Washington, D.C.)

Abstract

The difficulties faced by many developing countries in raising revenue from direct taxes have forced them to rely heavily on indirect taxes to finance development interventions. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how to identify socially desirable options for commodity taxation in the context of a poverty reduction strategy. Within the logic of social evaluation we assess tax options on the basis of value judgments underlying members of the additively separable class of poverty measures. The criterion hinges on both the pattern of consumption of each commodity and the price elasticity of the poverty measure used. An application of this methodology to data for Guinea shows that many components of food expenditure (particularly cereals, grains and roots) would be good candidates for exemption from VAT. Even though expenditure on health and education is distributed in favour of the non-poor, their importance for human capital development argues for a program of targeted subsidies in a broader context of cost recovery. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • B. Essama-Nssah, 2007. "A poverty-focused evaluation of commodity tax options," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(8), pages 1114-1130.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:19:y:2007:i:8:p:1114-1130
    DOI: 10.1002/jid.1388
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jid.1388
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jid.1388?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sami Bibi & Jean-Yves Duclos, 2007. "Poverty-decreasing indirect tax reforms: Evidence from Tunisia," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(2), pages 165-190, April.
    2. Joel Slemrod & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1996. "The Costs of Taxation and the Marginal Efficiency Cost of Funds," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(1), pages 172-198, March.
    3. Deaton,Angus & Muellbauer,John, 1980. "Economics and Consumer Behavior," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521296762.
    4. Emran, M. Shahe & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2005. "On selective indirect tax reform in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 599-623, April.
    5. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 261-278, June.
    6. Hyun H. Son, 2006. "Assessing the pro-poorness of government fiscal policy in Thailand," Working Papers 15, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    7. Essama-Nssah B. & Lambert, Peter J., 2006. "Measuring the pro-poorness of income growth within an elasticity framework," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4035, The World Bank.
    8. Stephen Jenkins & Peter Lambert, "undated". ""Three 'I's of Poverty" Curves: TIPs for Poverty Analysis," Discussion Papers 97/1, Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Jenkins, Stephen P & Lambert, Peter J, 1997. "Three 'I's of Poverty Curves, with an Analysis of UK Poverty Trends," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 317-327, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Essama-Nssah, B., 2008. "Assessing the redistributive effect of fiscal policy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4592, The World Bank.
    2. Backiny-Yetna, Prospère & Wodon, Quentin, 2010. "Pauvreté en Guinée de 1994 à 2007: Tendances, perceptions, et priorités des ménages [Poverty in Guinea from 1994 to 2007: Trends, Perceptions, and Household Priorities]," MPRA Paper 34380, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Essama-Nssah, B. & Bassole, Leandre, 2010. "A counterfactual analysis of the poverty impact of economic growth in Cameroon," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5249, The World Bank.
    4. Roy Katayama & Andrew Dabalen & Essama Nssah & Guy Morel Amouzou Agbe, 2017. "Welfare and Poverty Impacts of Cocoa Price Policy Reform in Cote d'Ivoire," World Bank Publications - Reports 29625, The World Bank Group.

    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. B. Essama‐Nssah & Peter J. Lambert, 2009. "Measuring Pro‐Poorness: A Unifying Approach With New Results," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(3), pages 752-778, September.
    2. Koen Decancq & Marc Fleurbaey & François Maniquet, 2019. "Multidimensional poverty measurement with individual preferences," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(1), pages 29-49, March.
    3. Sami Bibi, 2006. "Growth with Equity is Better for the Poor," Cahiers de recherche 0640, CIRPEE.
    4. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    5. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Warlters, Michael, 2012. "The marginal cost of public funds and tax reform in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 58-72.
    6. Kodjo Adandohoin & Vigninou Gammadigbe, 2022. "The revenue efficiency consequences of the announcement of a tax transition reform: The case of WAEMU countries," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 34(S1), pages 195-218, July.
    7. James E. Anderson & Will Martin, 2011. "Costs of Taxation and Benefits of Public Goods with Multiple Taxes and Goods," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(2), pages 289-309, April.
    8. Arbex, Marcelo Aarestru & Mattos, Enlinson, 2020. "Limited tax capacity and the optimal taxation of firms," Textos para discussão 539, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    9. Jean-Sébastien Lenfant, 2021. "Eugen (Evgeny Evgenievich) Slutsky (1880-1948)," Working Papers hal-03628273, HAL.
    10. Haibara Takumi, 2017. "Indirect Tax Reform in Developing Countries: A Consumption-Neutral Approach," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, June.
    11. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic & Yongzheng Liu, 2011. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: Trends, Theory, and Economic Significance," Chapters, in: Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Anderson, James E. & Neary, J. Peter, 2016. "Sufficient statistics for tariff reform when revenue matters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 150-159.
    13. Ian W.H. Parry, 2002. "Environmental Taxes and Quotas in the Presence of Distorting Taxes in Factor Markets," Chapters, in: Lawrence H. Goulder (ed.), Environmental Policy Making in Economies with Prior Tax Distortions, chapter 23, pages 429-446, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Laudicella, Mauro & Cookson, Richard & Jones, Andrew M. & Rice, Nigel, 2009. "Health care deprivation profiles in the measurement of inequality and inequity: An application to GP fundholding in the English NHS," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1048-1061, December.
    15. Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman, 2017. "Illustrating Income Mobility: Two New Measures," Working Paper Series 6693, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    16. Jean-Pierre Lachaud, 1999. "Envois de fonds, inégalité et pauvreté au Burkina Faso," Revue Tiers Monde, Programme National Persée, vol. 40(160), pages 793-827.
    17. Michel Lubrano & Zhou Xun, 2023. "The Bayesian approach to poverty measurement," Post-Print halshs-04135764, HAL.
    18. Will Martin & James E. Anderson, 2005. "Costs of Taxation and the Benefits of Public Goods: The Role of Income Effects," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 617, Boston College Department of Economics.
    19. Coral del Río & Javier Ruiz-Castillo, 2001. "TIPs for poverty analysis. The case of Spain, 1980-81 to 1990-91," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 25(1), pages 63-91, January.
    20. Keen, Michael, 2008. "VAT, tariffs, and withholding: Border taxes and informality in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1892-1906, October.

    More about this item

    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:wly:jintdv:v:19:y:2007:i:8:p:1114-1130. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    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.