
25 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Working Paper
Combatting debt bias in South African firmsThe problem of debt bias can be tackled through either disincentivizing the use of debt financing or incentivizing the use of equity financing. Considering the South African context—in which many firms are highly leveraged and the marginal effective...
Blog
Developing countries would benefit from improved tax collection: What can help?The ability to raise revenues from taxes – called “fiscal capacity” – is a crucial aspect for the functioning of any state. Being able to tax citizens...
Journal Article
Political Competition and Tax Revenues in Developing CountriesPart of Journal Special Issue Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
Book Chapter
Mining's contribution to low- and middle-income economiesPart of Book Extractive Industries
Working Paper
Domestic revenue mobilization and informalityEffective 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
A fiscal approach to the social contract in sub-Saharan African countriesThe COVID-19 pandemic showed that many developing countries could not respond effectively to crises due to their limited capacity to diversify their social protection responses. Social protection systems depend mainly on government tax revenue...
Journal Article
The dynamic effects of aid and taxes on government spendingTHIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This article examines the impact of foreign aid and taxes on government spending for 67 developing countries during 1980–2013 using dynamic heterogeneous (panel) time-series techniques. We find that spending, aid and...
Working Paper
Does the adoption of peer-to-government mobile payments improve tax revenue mobilization in developing countries?Developing countries need to raise sufficient tax revenue to finance development. Revenue mobilization is often hampered by limited tax compliance, weak institutions, and technical problems with tax collection. One solution to these challenges is...
Working Paper
Mining’s contribution to low- and middle-income economiesIn several low- and middle-income countries with important extractive sectors, gross national income has developed favourably. Africa has benefitted most, particularly West Africa. This survey provides an up-to-date statistical analysis of the...
Working Paper
Tax revenues in transition countriesChanges in the tax structure and category of taxes clearly matter when it comes to initiating tax policies. This paper employs data from a sample of 33 transitional countries over the period 1991–2014. It finds that, in a particular transitional...
Working Paper
Good institutions and tax revenue outcomes in resource-rich countriesDeveloping countries that experience commodity booms struggle to mobilize sustainable tax revenues. Emerging literature on the subject notwithstanding, there is limited exploration of the specific types of institutions critical for improving fiscal...
Working Paper
Political competition and tax revenues in developing countriesBuilding on the literature of the political economy of taxation, this article explores the relationship between political competition and tax revenues using a sample of 89 developing countries from 1988 to 2010. Owing to the inertia of tax variables...
Technical Note
Government Revenue Dataset (2021): country notesThis 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
Constraints on the executive and tax revenues in the long runWe argue that tax revenues and political institutions placing constraints on the executive power may reinforce each other over time and so co-evolve in the long run. This may also bring a shift in the composition of revenues, from taxes levied on a...
Working Paper
Tax and sustainable development in sub-Saharan AfricaThis paper establishes how accountability quality might mediate the effect of tax revenue on sustainable development in 41 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990–2019. The empirical evidence is based on three empirical strategies...