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Income taxation and the validity of state capacity indicators

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  • Rogers, Melissa Ziegler
  • Weller, Nicholas

Abstract

State capacity is a key concept for research in public policy and political science. Despite its importance, there is no broadly accepted measure of state capacity in the existing literature, and frequently used measures of capacity have not been examined for their validity. We begin with an explicit definition of state capacity – the state's ability to implement public policy – and connect this definition to a measurable outcome of state capacity – the state's taxation of income. We show that this measure, income taxes as a percentage of total tax revenue, is a useful indicator of state capacity and meets higher standards of measurement validity than other tax-based indicators. We also compare our measure to the most common existing indicators of state capacity to show that income taxation is a better theoretical and statistical measure of states’ effectiveness in policy implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Rogers, Melissa Ziegler & Weller, Nicholas, 2014. "Income taxation and the validity of state capacity indicators," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(2), pages 183-206, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:34:y:2014:i:02:p:183-206_00
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    Cited by:

    1. James A. Piazza, 2016. "Oil and terrorism: an investigation of mediators," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 251-268, December.
    2. Călin Vâlsan & Elena Druică & Rodica Ianole-Călin, 2020. "State Capacity and Tolerance towards Tax Evasion: First Evidence from Romania," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-18, June.
    3. 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).
    4. Dodlova, Marina & Lucas, Viola, 2021. "Regime security and taxation in autocracies: Who is taxed and how?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    5. Dan DUNGACIU & Lucian DUMITRESCU, 2022. "A Prognosis on Romania’s Capacity to Deal with Emergency Situations: Objective and Subjective Resilience during The Covid-19 Pandemic," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 176-190, April.
    6. Ali Fisunoglu & Kyungkook Kang & Tad Kugler & Marina Arbetman-Rabinowitz, 2023. "Relative political capacity: A dataset to evaluate the performance of nations, 1960–2018," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 40(3), pages 325-345, May.

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