Taxing Africa for inclusive human development: the mediating role of governance quality

Purpose - Given that the literature on the links between taxation and inclusive human development is ambiguous, it is important to investigate whether the mediating influence of governance in taxation for inclusive development exists. Thus, this study aims to explore the linkages between the governance quality, taxation and inclusive human development (i.e. inequality-adjusted human development index). Design/methodology/approach - This study employs the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to establish the empirical findings on 52 African countries for the period 2010–2018. Among the existing GMM approaches, this study follows the Roodman approach, an enhancement of the Arellano and Bover techniques, which limits the proliferation of instruments. This study uses the two-step approach, which deals with issues of the heteroscedasticity as against instead the one-step procedure, which solely addresses the homoscedasticity concerns. Findings - The following findings are established. First, there is an unconditional positive effect of taxation on inclusive human development. Second, the net effects of taxation on inclusive human development, associated with the interaction of the government revenue with governance quality variables, are positive for the most part. It is then evident that when taxation policies are combined with good governance initiatives, the ultimate impact of inclusive human development is likely to be enhanced. Originality/value - This study establishes that, whereas taxation dynamics largely have a favorable incidence in promoting inclusive human development, when such taxation measures are complemented with good governance initiatives, the overall impact of inclusive human development is also likely to be positive. It follows that policies designed to promote political, economic and institutional governance should be implemented in tandem, which policies designed to boost tax performance in the sampled countries. The findings can also be understood from the perspectives that inclusive human development is likely to be boosted when taxation measures are complemented with, (1) the free and fair election and replacement of political leaders (i.e. political governance), (2) the formulation and implementation of inclusive policies for the delivery of public goods (i.e. economic governance) and (3) the respect by citizens and the state of institutions that govern interactions between them (i.e. institutional governance).