Working Paper
Domestic revenue mobilization and informality
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...
Working Paper
The state and the ‘legalization’ of illicit financial flows
Most research on illicit financial flows (IFFs) has focused on illicit outflows from developing countries and the role of non-state actors in generating IFFs. Less attention has been paid to processes and interfaces through which IFFs enter formal...
Working Paper
Tax effort revisited: new estimates from the Government Revenue Dataset
Attention on domestic resource mobilization—particularly in developing countries—has increased significantly in recent years. This stems from, among other things, recognition in the Sustainable Development Goals that further domestic funding is...
Working Paper
Fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa: conceptualization and empirical trends
This paper contributes to the debate on domestic revenue mobilization and state-building in the Global South by asking whether there are fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa. To answer this question, we review the diverse understandings of the fiscal...
Working Paper
The dynamics of domestic revenue mobilization across four decades
We utilize the recently updated UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset, which covers key indicators on tax and non-tax revenues for 196 countries since the 1980s, to study the dynamics of government revenue tax collection across selected periods from...
Technical Note
Government Revenue Dataset (2021): country notes
This technical note is the third in a series based on the UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset (GRD). The preceding notes have described in detail the variables contained within the GRD and the source selection procedures. In this technical note, we...
Working Paper
Global oil theft: impact and policy responses
This paper, the first of two on global oil theft and fraud, discusses the prevalence, methods, and consequences of global oil theft, valued at US$133 billion per year and equivalent to 5–7 per cent of the global market for crude oil and petroleum...
Working Paper
The effects of a risk-based approach to tax examinations
While technical assistance and increased use of ICT in the area of tax administration have been regarded to hold considerable promise for greater revenue collection, the evidence on how these activities work in the real-world circumstances of...
Policy Brief
How to support the emergence of effective tax systems
There has been a revival of interest in the state’s role in economic development. Recent research argues that the most successful economies are those where effective states provide crucial public goods and services. The historical emergence of...
Working Paper
Taxing extractive resources in the transition to a low-carbon future
This paper explores the potential impacts of the transition to a low-carbon future for the taxation of extractive resources. The global debate on climate change has firmly moved on from the question of whether countries ought to shift towards such a...
Working Paper
Did Uganda’s corporate tax incentives benefit the Ugandan economy or only the firms?
Uganda has one of the lowest corporate income tax collection rates in sub-Saharan Africa, while offering generous corporate tax incentives. It is unclear whether tax incentives achieve their objectives without primarily benefiting firms, potentially...