A Conditional Revenue Curse? Progressive Taxation and Resource Rents in Developing Countries

One of the main obstacles to the sustainability of governments’ revenues in developing countries is the dependency on the rent generated by nonrenewable natural resources. Resource-rich countries have weak incentives to design and maintain efficient tax systems. I consider a theoretical model where the government of a resource-rich country, has to decide whether to undertake a costly investment in its ability to collect taxes and I incorporate progressive income tax. The model predicts that a resource-rich country has more incentives to invest in its ability to collect tax revenues, the more progressive is the tax schedule because expected returns to that investment may be higher. Following a resource windfall, countries with a high level of progressivity collect more tax revenues than their counterparts with a low level of progressivity.