Tax effort in Sub-Saharan African countries : evidence from a new dataset

This paper proposes (i) a new database of tax revenue for 42 Sub-Saharan African countries (SSA) over the period 1980-2015, (ii) an estimate of tax effort for these countries, and (iii) some replication analyses of previous tax effort estimations. The database results from statistical information of the African Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In particular, it allows distinguishing tax revenue from the natural resource sector from the other economic sectors. SSA countries collected on average 13.2 percent of GDP in non-resource tax revenue over the studied period and their average estimated tax effort is 0.58. In other words, SSA countries could raise 22.75 percent of GDP in non-resource taxes if they fully used their potential. In line with previous analyses, we find that countries' stage of development measured by per-capita income, financial development, and trade openness are important factors improving tax revenue in the region, while natural resource endowment and the importance of the agriculture sector reduce unambiguously the non-resource tax-to-GDP ratio. Finally, beyond the originality of the database itself and the empirical results, this work participates explicitly to the replication principle given its online development with R software (https://data.cerdi.uca.fr/taxeffort/).