IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2025-57.html

Are you willing to pay? War and citizen's readiness to pay tax: The case of Ukraine

Author

Listed:
  • Lesley-Ann Daniels
  • Frank Borge Wietzke

Abstract

Bellicose theories of state-building suggest that wars enable the emergence of strong states via the mechanism of increased war-time fiscal capacities. We explore the hitherto little-analysed micro-level foundations of this claim. Does the experience of war increase public support for higher taxation? Furthermore, is this support limited to only defensive purposes, or does it extend to other war-related but forward-looking goals like post-war reconstruction and cohesion-building? We implement a survey experiment during the ongoing war in Ukraine to address the above questions.

Suggested Citation

  • Lesley-Ann Daniels & Frank Borge Wietzke, 2025. "Are you willing to pay? War and citizen's readiness to pay tax: The case of Ukraine," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2025-57, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2025-57-are-you-willing-pay-war-and-citizens-readiness-pay-tax.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mueller, John E., 1970. "Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 18-34, March.
    2. Cameron G. Thies, 2005. "War, Rivalry, and State Building in Latin America," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(3), pages 451-465, July.
    3. James Fenske, 2014. "Ecology, Trade, And States In Pre-Colonial Africa," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 612-640, June.
    4. Tyler Cowen & Christopher Coyne, 2005. "Postwar Reconstruction: Some Insights from Public Choice and Institutional Economics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 31-48, January.
    5. repec:cep:stieop:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Johnson, William R, 1988. "Income Redistribution in a Federal System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 570-573, June.
    7. Weigel, Jonathan, 2020. "The participation dividend of taxation: how citizens in Congo engage more with the state when it tries to tax them," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104561, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2005. "Exact and Approximate Stepdown Methods for Multiple Hypothesis Testing," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 94-108, March.
    9. Mintz, Alex, 1989. "Guns Versus Butter: A Disaggregated Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 1285-1293, December.
    10. Norpoth, Helmut, 1987. "Guns and Butter and Government Popularity in Britain," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 949-959, September.
    11. Persson, Torsten & Besley, Tim, 2013. "Taxation and Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 9307, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Tarek A. Hassan & James A. Robinson, 2011. "Social Structure and Development: A Legacy of the Holocaust in Russia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(2), pages 895-946.
    13. Jonathan L Weigel, 2020. "The Participation Dividend of Taxation: How Citizens in Congo Engage More with the State When it Tries to Tax Them," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 1849-1903.
    14. Narizny, Kevin, 2003. "Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 203-220, May.
    15. Queralt, Didac, 2019. "War, International Finance, and Fiscal Capacity in the Long Run," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 713-753, October.
    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. Jonathan L. Weigel & Elie Kabue Ngindu, 2023. "The taxman cometh: Pathways out of a low‐capacity trap in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(360), pages 1362-1396, October.
    2. Kresch, Evan Plous & Walker, Mark & Best, Michael Carlos & Gerard, François & Naritomi, Joana, 2023. "Sanitation and property tax compliance: Analyzing the social contract in Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    3. Agustín Goenaga & Oriol Sabaté & Jan Teorell, 2023. "The state does not live by warfare alone: War and revenue in the long nineteenth century," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 393-418, April.
    4. Alessandro Belmonte & Vincenzo Bove & Jessica Di Salvatore, 2021. "Donors for tax morale: Evidence from 34 African countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-185, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Blumenstock, Joshua & Callen, Michael & Faikina, Anastasiia & Fiorin, Stefano & Ghani, Tarek, 2023. "Strengthening Fragile States: Evidence from Mobile Salary Payments in Afghanistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 18254, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge & Mmari, Donald & Sjursen, Ingrid Hoem & Tungodden, Bertil, 2021. "Understanding the resource curse: A large-scale experiment on corruption in Tanzania," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 129-157.
    7. Okunogbe, Oyebola M. & Tourek,Gabriel, 2023. "How Can Lower-Income Countries Collect More Taxes ? The Role of Technology, Tax Agents, and Politics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10655, The World Bank.
    8. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos A. Molina & James A. Robinson, 2022. "The Weak State Trap," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 293-331, April.
    9. Tourek, Gabriel, 2022. "Targeting in tax behavior: Evidence from Rwandan firms," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    10. Morelli, Massimo & Bellodi, Luca & Vannoni, Matia, 2021. "The Costs of Populism for the Bureaucracy and Government Performance:," CEPR Discussion Papers 15929, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Cédric Chambru & Emeric Henry & Benjamin Marx, 2024. "The Dynamic Consequences of State Building: Evidence from the French Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(11), pages 3578-3622, November.
    12. 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).
    13. Guillermo Cruces & Dario Tortarolo & Gonzalo Vazquez-Bare, 2022. "Design of two-stage experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance," IFS Working Papers W22/32, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Alessandro Belmonte & Désirée Teobaldelli & Davide Ticchi, 2023. "Tax morale, fiscal capacity, and war," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(2), pages 445-474, June.
    15. Weigel, Jonathan & Balán, Pablo & Bergeron, Augustin & Tourek, Gabriel, 2020. "Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the D.R. Congo," CEPR Discussion Papers 15138, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. 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 2024/05, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    17. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    18. Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez & Samuel D. Restrepo-Oyola, 2025. "A randomized intervention to gauge preferred tax rates and progressivity," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 32(3), pages 782-804, June.
    19. Lü, Xiaobo & Tsai, Lily L. & Zhang, Ping & Trinh, Minh, 2025. "Do government accountability and responsiveness enhance support for property taxes? Experimental evidence from China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    20. Dario Tortarolo & Guillermo Cruces & Gonzalo Vazquez-Bare, 2023. "Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance," IFS Working Papers W23/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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-2025-57. 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.