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Using data from approximately ninety countries, the author shows that the more a state taxes the rich as a percentage of GDP, the more it protects property rights; and the more it taxes the poor, the more it provides basic public services. There is no evidence that states gouge the rich to benefit the poor or vice versa, contrary to state-capture theories. Nor is there any evidence that taxes and spending are unrelated, contrary to state-autonomy models. Instead, states operate much like fiscal contracts, with groups getting what they pay for.

Using data from approximately ninety countries, the author shows that the more a state taxes the rich as a percentage of GDP, the more it protects property rights; and the more it taxes the poor, the more it provides basic public services. There is no evidence that states gouge the rich to benefit the poor or vice versa, contrary to state-capture theories. Nor is there any evidence that taxes and spending are unrelated, contrary to state-autonomy models. Instead, states operate much like fiscal contracts, with groups getting what they pay for. (World Politics / SWP)

AbstractGovernments often have contentious relationships with residents of urban informal settlements. Motivated by the desire for rents and dreams of becoming the next luxury destination, city governments worldwide have forcefully evicted and demolished informal communities in this pursuit. In such instances it would seem that the state has broken the social contract with its most vulnerable citizens. How do citizens respond? We might expect them to reciprocate in kind, by withholding taxes owed to the government. Using a survey of citizens living in informal settlements across Lagos State in Nigeria, we explore what predicts citizens' willingness to comply with government taxation. In this unlikely context for voluntary compliance, we observe that a third of respondents pay taxes and a majority are willing to pay absent enforcement. We find minimal support for standard theories of tax payment — trust in or reciprocity toward the government, or identification with the nation. Instead, we find that willingness to pay taxes is correlated with group membership, believing that community members respect taxpayers, and donating to the community. Our data suggest that local institutions and social relations are associated with citizens' willingness to comply with tax policy.

Tax systems worldwide face far-reaching transformations through the implementation of digital technologies. A growing body of academic literature addresses these transformations and explores how digitalisation is affecting the operations and efficiency of revenue agencies, and taxpayer compliance. However, the literature largely ignores the diversified body of research regarding the characteristics, dynamics and determinants of the "fiscal contract". This term describes an implicit agreement between state and both citizen and business taxpayers that associates individual tax compliance and the distribution of the tax burden within a society with public service delivery and access to political decision-making. Fiscal contract theory helps us to understand that taxation is primarily a political - not a technical - issue. But what happens if some technologies cause profound power shifts in the relationship between revenue authorities and taxpayers? Will they trigger the emergence of broad-based, stable fiscal contracts, or might tax system digitalisation increase exclusion and decrease stability? What drives these changes? How do digital technologies in the tax systems of developing countries affect their fiscal contracts? This paper seeks to lay the conceptual groundwork at the intersection of two dynamic academic debates. Based on a thorough review of the literature, it proposes a research framework that combines economic, public management and political science perspectives in order to generate knowledge about institutional, attitudinal and behavioural responses to tax system digitalisation.

Tax systems worldwide face far-reaching transformations through the implementation of digital technologies. A growing body of academic literature addresses these transformations and explores how digitalisation is affecting the operations and efficiency of revenue agencies, and taxpayer compliance. However, the literature largely ignores the diversified body of research regarding the characteristics, dynamics and determinants of the "fiscal contract". This term describes an implicit agreement between state and both citizen and business taxpayers that associates individual tax compliance and the distribution of the tax burden within a society with public service delivery and access to political decision-making. Fiscal contract theory helps us to understand that taxation is primarily a political - not a technical - issue. But what happens if some technologies cause profound power shifts in the relationship between revenue authorities and taxpayers? Will they trigger the emergence of broad-based, stable fiscal contracts, or might tax system digitalisation increase exclusion and decrease stability? What drives these changes? How do digital technologies in the tax systems of developing countries affect their fiscal contracts? This paper seeks to lay the conceptual groundwork at the intersection of two dynamic academic debates. Based on a thorough review of the literature, it proposes a research framework that combines economic, public management and political science perspectives in order to generate knowledge about institutional, attitudinal and behavioural responses to tax system digitalisation.

This paper sets out to examine the impact of the fiscal contract system on economic growth in China's different provinces. Empirical testing is conducted using the error components model and pooled cross-section (provinces) and time-series data from 1989 to 1993. The empirical results for the whole sample show an inclination towards convergence of regional economic growth, with any increase in regional tax revenue hindering investment and employment due to excessive taxation, which is unfavorable to economic growth. The same finding applies to extra-budgetary revenue. Ranked by their overall strength, the provinces are divided into economically advanced and backward groups for empirical testing. Comparison of the empirical results using a sample of the top and bottom fifteen, in terms of their overall strength, reveals that the economic growth of the top fifteen provinces tends to be divergent. More fiscal revenue and extra-budgetary funds are unfavorable to economic growth and the results are the same for all provinces; the result also remains the same when fiscal revenue is itemized. The difference between the two lies in fiscal expenditure.

Many Sub-Saharan African countries are unable to generate sufficient tax revenues for public purposes. While it is widely accepted that governments' ability to tax is shaped by politics, the precise mechanisms through which this relationship takes place in practice remain elusive. Based on a historical analysis of four major tax reforms in Ghana from the 1850s to the late 1990s, this article captures the various ways in which taxpayers negotiate with the state in an attempt to limit the extent of taxation, especially in cases where state reciprocity falls short of what people expect. Our evidence suggests that, far from being a recent development, effective taxation in Ghana has long depended on the ability of the state to convince taxpayers that tax revenues will be used for the public benefit. A history of misappropriation of tax revenues, overt corruption, and profligacy diminished taxpayers' support for governments' tax efforts. More generally, the article points to the importance of understanding how tax bargaining works in practice and people's perceptions of their governments over the long term to overcome resistance to tax reforms.

Bellicist theories of comparative development predict increases in taxation as the result of military rivalries. Others claim that this causal relationship is contingent on particular geographical, institutional, and historical conditions. In this paper, we explore the conditional effects of military rivalries on taxation during the 19th and 20th centuries using time-series cross-section models. We hypothesize that international norms of territoriality, inter-state military alliances, and regime type will condition the direction and magnitude of the effect of rivalries on taxation. Our models suggest that from 1815 to 1945 the effects of rivalry on taxation were insignificant independently of these systemic, dyadic, and institutional factors. However, after 1945 when norms of territorial integrity consolidated, democracies with strong military allies responded to military pressures by lowering taxes in the short-term, reoriented public expenditures towards social spending, and ultimately increased taxes in the long run through a reconfiguration of the fiscal contract. Conversely, autocracies with strong allies responded to military pressures by increasing taxes in the short-term, capturing as much wealth as possible but failing to consolidate durable fiscal institutions.

The paper analyses the course of Dutch financial policy since the demise of Keynesian full employment. How did the public expenditure ratio, the tax burden, and the deficit develop in the last twenty-five years? Why did the government lose control over public spending in the period between 1977 and 1982, even though it proved possible to reduce spending continuously thereafter? Important explanatory variables in this context are economic growth and the ideological orientation of the government. In the 1990s, however, a literature on the common pool resource problem of public budgets developed which emphasizes the impact of the number of actors involved in financial policy-making as well as the institutional design of the budget process for public spending. Combining process tracing and intertemporal comparison, the study demonstrates how fiscal contracts were made and how they were stabilized through the working of the party system. It concludes that if other relevant variables are allowed for, fiscal contracts did have a moderating impact on public spending. ; In dem Papier wird die Finanzpolitik der Niederlande seit dem Ende der keynesianischen Vollbeschäftigungsphase analysiert. Wie haben sich die Staatsquote, die Abgabenquote und das Defizit in den vergangenen 25 Jahren entwickelt? Warum sind die Staatsausgaben in der Phase von 1977 bis 1982 praktisch unkontrolliert gewachsen, wenn es danach gelang, diese kontinuierlich zurück zu führen? Wichtige Erklärungsvariablen sind in diesem Zusammenhang natürlich das Wirtschaftswachstum und die ideologische Ausrichtung der Regierung. In den Neunzigerjahren hat sich eine Literatur zum Allmendeproblem des öffentlichen Haushaltes entwickelt, die zur Erklärung der Entwicklung der Staatsausgaben vor allem auf die Zahl der finanzpolitischen Akteure und die institutionelle Ausgestaltung des Haushaltsprozesses abstellt. Durch eine Kombination von Prozessanalyse und intertemporalen Vergleich wird gezeigt, wie finanzpolitische Vereinbarungen zu Stande kamen und wie sie durch die Funktionsweise des Parteiensystems stabilisiert wurden. Schließlich wird belegt, dass die in Koalitionsabkommen niedergelegten finanzpolitischen Absprachen unter Kontrolle anderer wichtiger Erklärungsvariablen einen mäßigenden Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der Staatsquote hatten.