IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2012-220.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxation and Development: Again

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Michael Keen

Abstract

Issues of taxation and development, which have long been a central concern of the IMF, have attracted wider and renewed interest in the last few years. This paper reflects on three broad lessons of experience: that developing countries differ vastly in tax matters, and in ways that are less than fully understood; that the history of ‘big ideas’ in guiding tax reform for developing countries is decidedly mixed; and that the value of the emphasis often placed in this context on ‘informality’ is decidedly limited. It also asks whether ideas of ‘state building’ emphasized in some of the recent literature are likely to lead to practical advice much different from that commonly offered now.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Michael Keen, 2012. "Taxation and Development: Again," IMF Working Papers 2012/220, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2012/220
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=26242
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    2. Erard, Brian & Ho, Chih-Chin, 2001. "Searching for ghosts: who are the nonfilers and how much tax do they owe?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 25-50, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Kasara, Kimuli, 2007. "Tax Me If You Can: Ethnic Geography, Democracy, and the Taxation of Agriculture in Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 159-172, February.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron, 2005. "Politics and economics in weak and strong states," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1199-1226, October.
    6. Skinner, Jonathan, 1991. "Prospects for Agricultural Land Taxation in Developing Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 5(3), pages 493-511, September.
    7. James R. Tybout, 2000. "Manufacturing Firms in Developing Countries: How Well Do They Do, and Why?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(1), pages 11-44, March.
    8. Ms. Sònia Muñoz & Stanley Sang-Wook Cho, 2003. "Social Impact of a Tax Reform: The Case of Ethiopia," IMF Working Papers 2003/232, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Kanbur, Ravi, 2009. "Conceptualising Informality: Regulation and Enforcement," IZA Discussion Papers 4186, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. 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.
    11. Kaizuka, Keimei, 1992. "The Shoup Tax System and the Postwar Development of the Japanese Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 221-225, May.
    12. 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.
    13. Keen, Michael & Lockwood, Ben, 2010. "The value added tax: Its causes and consequences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 138-151, July.
    14. Aureo de Paula & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2007. "The Informal Sector, Second Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 07-035, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 17 Oct 2007.
    15. Johannes Stroebel & Arthur van Benthem, 2013. "Resource Extraction Contracts Under Threat of Expropriation: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1622-1639, December.
    16. Aureo de Paula & Jose A. Scheinkman, 2006. "The Informal Sector," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001030, UCLA Department of Economics.
    17. Gauthier, Bernard & Gersovitz, Mark, 1997. "Revenue erosion through exemption and evasion in Cameroon, 1993," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 407-424, June.
    18. 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.
    19. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Warlters, Michael, 2005. "Taxation base in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 625-646, April.
    20. 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.
    21. Brett, Craig & Keen, Michael, 2000. "Political uncertainty and the earmarking of environmental taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 315-340, March.
    22. Goode, Richard, 1993. "Tax advice to developing countries: An historical survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 37-53, January.
    23. Bernard Gauthier & Ritva Reinikka, 2006. "Shifting Tax Burdens through Exemptions and Evasion: an Empirical Investigation of Uganda," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(3), pages 373-398, September.
    24. Bird,Richard & Gendron,Pierre-Pascal, 2011. "The VAT in Developing and Transitional Countries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107401440.
    25. Moore, Mick, 2007. "How Does Taxation Affect the Quality of Governance?," Working Papers 12795, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    26. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2008. "The collection efficiency of the Value Added Tax: Theory and international evidence," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 391-410.
    27. Ms. Maureen Kidd & William Joseph Crandall, 2006. "Revenue Authorities: Issues and Problems in Evaluating their Success," IMF Working Papers 2006/240, International Monetary Fund.
    28. Frank A. Cowell, 1990. "Cheating the Government: The Economics of Evasion," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262532484, December.
    29. Michael Keen & Mario Mansour, 2010. "Revenue Mobilisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges from Globalisation II - Corporate Taxation," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 28(5), pages 573-596, September.
    30. Dina Pomeranz, 2015. "No Taxation without Information: Deterrence and Self-Enforcement in the Value Added Tax," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2539-2569, August.
    31. Fuest, Clemens & Hebous, Shafik & Riedel, Nadine, 2011. "International debt shifting and multinational firms in developing economies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 135-138.
    32. 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.
    33. Mario Mansour & Mr. Michael Keen, 2009. "Revenue Mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges from Globalization," IMF Working Papers 2009/157, International Monetary Fund.
    34. Michael Keen & Mario Mansour, 2010. "Revenue Mobilisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges from Globalisation I - Trade Reform," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 28(5), pages 553-571, September.
    35. Chun-Yan Kuo & Hatice Jenkins & Glenn Jenkins, 2006. "Is The Value Added Tax Naturally Progressive?," Working Paper 1059, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    36. John W. McArthur & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Institutions and Geography: Comment on Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2000)," NBER Working Papers 8114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Mardan, Mohammed & Stimmelmayr, Michael, 2020. "Tax competition between developed, emerging, and developing countries – Same same but different?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Christian Ebeke & M Mansour & Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, 2016. "The Power to Tax in Sub-Saharan Africa: LTUs, VATs, and SARAs," Working Papers halshs-01332049, HAL.
    3. Ravi Kanbur & Michael Keen, 2014. "Thresholds, informality, and partitions of compliance," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(4), pages 536-559, August.
    4. Romain Houssa & Kelbesa Megersa, 2017. "Institutional quality, economic development and the performance of VAT," BeFinD Working Papers 0115, University of Namur, Department of Economics.
    5. Buettner, Thiess & Madzharova, Boryana, 2018. "WTO membership and the shift to consumption taxes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 197-218.
    6. 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.
    7. Helene Ehrhart, 2013. "Elections and the structure of taxation in developing countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 195-211, July.
    8. Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge, 2013. "Taxation and Development: a Review of Donor Support to Strengthen Tax Systems in Developing Countries," Working Papers 13683, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    9. Keen, Michael & Lockwood, Ben, 2010. "The value added tax: Its causes and consequences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 138-151, July.
    10. Antonio Gómez Gómez-Plana & Pedro Pascual Arzoz, 2011. "Fraude fiscal e IVA en España: incidencia en un modelo de equilibrio general," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 199(4), pages 9-52, December.
    11. Kaisa Alavuotunki & Jukka Pirttilä, 2015. "The consequences of the value-added tax on inequality," WIDER Working Paper Series 111, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Jonathan Goyette, 2012. "Optimal tax threshold: the consequences on efficiency of official vs. effective enforcement," Cahiers de recherche 12-07, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    13. Richard M. Bird & Michael Smart, 2012. "Financing Social Expenditures in Developing Countries: Payroll or Value Added Taxes?," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1206, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    14. Carter Patrick, 2013. "Does Foreign Aid Displace Domestic Taxation?," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-47, August.
    15. Kaisa Alavuotunki & Jukka Pirttilä, 2015. "The consequences of the value-added tax on inequality," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-111, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Sijbren Cnossen, 2015. "Mobilizing VAT revenues in African countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(6), pages 1077-1108, December.
    17. Eduardo Lora & Johanna Fajardo-González, 2016. "Employment and taxes in Latin America: An empirical study of the effects of payroll, corporate income and value-added taxes on labor outcomes," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 35(Especial ), pages 75-117, January.
    18. Bachas, Pierre & Gadenne, Lucie & Jensen, Anders, 2020. "Informality, Consumption Taxes and Redistribution," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1277, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    19. Luisito Bertinelli & Arnaud Bourgain & Abdoul Karim Diamoutene, 2017. "Corporate Effective Tax Rate in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Formal Companies of Mali," DEM Discussion Paper Series 17-18, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    20. Fikri R. Arrachman & Riatu M. Qibthiyyah, 2018. "The Relationship of VAT Rate and Revenues in the Case of Informality," Economics and Finance in Indonesia, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Indonesia, vol. 64, pages 73-96, Juni.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2012/220. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.