IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2022-120.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Domestic revenue mobilization and informality: Challenges and opportunities for sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Abel Gwaindepi

Abstract

Effective domestic revenue mobilization has gained renewed urgency, especially in the light of the need to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In taxation debates, the 'informal sectors' have hitherto been assumed to be a part of the problem and implicitly mistaken for lucrative tax bases. First, I critically interrogate current conceptualizations of informality to highlight how the informality that materially affects revenue mobilization goes beyond the hitherto narrow focus on the visible informal sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Abel Gwaindepi, 2022. "Domestic revenue mobilization and informality: Challenges and opportunities for sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-120, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2022-120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2022-120-domestic-revenue-mobilization-informality-challenges-opportunities-sub-Saharan-Africa.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Godwin Dube & Daniela Casale, 2019. "Informal sector taxes and equity: Evidence from presumptive taxation in Zimbabwe," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 37(1), pages 47-66, January.
    2. repec:cep:stieop:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2014. "Why Do Developing Countries Tax So Little?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 99-120, Fall.
    4. Titan Alon & Minki Kim & David Lagakos, 2020. "How Should Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Differ in the Developing World?," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-350, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    5. Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge & Kagoma, Cecilia & Mdee, Ephraim & Sjursen, Ingrid Hoem & Somville, Vincent, 2020. "The customer is king: Evidence on VAT compliance in Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    6. Anuradha Joshi & Wilson Prichard & Christopher Heady, 2014. "Taxing the Informal Economy: The Current State of Knowledge and Agendas for Future Research," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1325-1347, November.
    7. Persson, Torsten & Besley, Tim, 2013. "Taxation and Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 9307, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. repec:idq:ictduk:17440 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. repec:idq:ictduk:15127 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Gwaindepi, Abel, 2019. "Domestic revenue mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America: A comparative analysis since 1980," Lund Papers in Economic History 209, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    2. Tom Moerenhout & Joonseok Yang, 2022. "Tax Evasion Attitudes of Small Firms in Low‐ and Middle‐income Countries: Evidence from Nigeria," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(6), November.
    3. Abel Gwaindepi, 2022. "Fiscal capacity in ‘‘responsible government’’ colonies: the Cape Colony in comparative perspective, c. 1865–1910 [The spread of empire: Clio and the measurement of colonial borrowing costs]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(3), pages 340-369.
    4. Savoia, Antonio & Sen, Kunal & Tagem, Abrams M. E., 2023. "Constraints on the executive and tax revenues in the long run," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 314-331, June.
    5. Mohammed Abdullahi Umar & Chek Derashid & Idawati Ibrahim, 2017. "What Is Wrong With the Fiscal Social Contract of Taxation in Developing Countries? A Dialogue With Self-Employed Business Owners in Nigeria," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, December.
    6. Sena Kimm Gnangnon, 2023. "Effect of the Shadow Economy on Tax Reform in Developing Countries," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-49, March.
    7. Kodjo Adandohoin & Jean-Francois Brun, 2020. "Are incomes and property taxes effective instruments for tax transition?," Working Papers hal-03053683, HAL.
    8. Guo, Jang-Ting & Hung, Fu-Sheng, 2020. "Tax evasion and financial development under asymmetric information in credit markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. Dhammika Dharmapala, 2021. "A New Measure Of Foreign Rule Based On Genetic Distance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 622-647, April.
    10. 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).
    11. Christine Lewis, 2019. "Raising more public revenue in Indonesia in a growth - and equity-friendly way," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1534, OECD Publishing.
    12. Kodjo Adandohoin & Jean-Francois Brun, 2021. "The Role of Income and Property Taxes in Tax Transition and the Mediating Effect of Financial Development," Post-Print hal-03470540, HAL.
    13. Favourate Y Mpofu, 2021. "Addressing the Saturation Attainment Controversy: Evidence from the Qualitative Research on Assessing the Feasibility of Informal Sector Taxation in Zimbabwe," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 19(1), pages 607-630, May.
    14. Jahnke, Björn & Weisser, Reinhard A., 2019. "How does petty corruption affect tax morale in Sub-Saharan Africa?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    15. Pallavi Roy & Mushtaq H. Khan, 2021. "Digitizing Taxation and Premature Formalization in Developing Countries," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(4), pages 855-877, July.
    16. Alou Adessé Dama, 2021. "Exploring Tilly’s Theory : Violent Conflicts and Tax Revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers hal-03401539, HAL.
    17. Titan Alon & Minki Kim & David Lagakos & Mitchell Vuren, 2023. "Macroeconomic Effects of COVID-19 Across the World Income Distribution," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 99-147, March.
    18. Yuanyuan Gu & Jhorland Ayala-García, 2022. "Emigration and Tax Revenue," Documentos de trabajo sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 312, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    19. Andersson, Jens & Lazuka, Volha, 2019. "Long-term drivers of taxation in francophone West Africa 1893–2010," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 294-313.
    20. Vitor Gaspar & Laura Jaramillo & Mr. Philippe Wingender, 2016. "Tax Capacity and Growth: Is there a Tipping Point?," IMF Working Papers 2016/234, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Domestic revenue mobilization; Shadow economy; Tax revenue; Informal sector; Informality; Technology;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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-2022-120. 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.