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AbstractHow might fragile states escape a low‐capacity trap in which citizens pay little tax and the government has insufficient revenue to increase enforcement or provide public goods? We argue that governments can escape such traps by regularizing tax collection. When citizens observe taxes being collected in a systematic, non‐arbitrary manner, they are likely to update positively about the procedural performance of the government, increasing their intrinsic motivation to comply. We test this idea in the first door‐to‐door property tax collection campaign in Kananga, Democratic Republic of the Congo, which raised compliance from near zero to 10.3%. Linking pre‐campaign surveys with administrative tax data, we document a strong relationship between citizens' prior perceptions of government performance and property tax payment. Then, exploiting the campaign's random roll‐out, we find that systematic tax collection caused citizens to update positively about the government's procedural performance. Together, these results are consistent with a virtuous cycle of perceived government performance and fiscal capacity.

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer's vision in a single, accessible volume.A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:• Challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights; • Champions the power of partnership against global poverty, climate change, and other pressing problems today; • Overturns common assumptions about health disparities around the globe by considering the large-scale social forces that determine who gets sick and who has access to health care;• Discusses how hope, solidarity, faith, and hardbitten analysis have animated Farmer's service to the poor in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Russia, and elsewhere;• Leaves the reader with an uplifting vision: that with creativity, passion, teamwork, and determination, the next generations can make the world a safer and more humane place

This paper investigates the trade-offs between local elites and state agents as tax collectors in low-capacity states. We study a randomized policy experiment assigning neighborhoods of a large Congolese city to property tax collection by city chiefs or state agents. Chief collection raised tax compliance by 3.2 percentage points, increasing revenue by 44 percent. Chiefs collected more bribes but did not undermine tax morale or trust in government. Results from a hybrid treatment arm in which state agents consulted with chiefs before collection suggest that chief collectors achieved higher compliance by using local information to more efficiently target households with high payment propensities, rather than by being more effective at persuading households to pay conditional on having visited them. (JEL D73, D83, H24, H26, H71, O12, O17)

Few phenomena have had as profound or long-lasting consequences in human history as the emergence of large-scale centralized states in the place of smaller scale and more local societies. This study examines a fundamental, and yet unexplored, consequence of state formation: its genetic legacy. We studied the genetic impact of state centralization during the formation of the eminent precolonial Kuba Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the 17th century. We analyzed genome-wide data from over 690 individuals sampled from 27 different ethnic groups from the Kasai Central Province of the DRC. By comparing genetic patterns in the present-day Kuba, whose ancestors were part of the Kuba Kingdom, with those in neighboring non-Kuba groups, we show that the Kuba today are more genetically diverse and more similar to other groups in the region than expected, consistent with the historical unification of distinct subgroups during state centralization. We also found evidence of genetic mixing dating to the time of the Kingdom at its most prominent. Using this unique dataset, we characterize the genetic history of the Kasai Central Province and describe the historic late wave of migrations into the region that contributed to a Bantu-like ancestry component found across large parts of Africa today. Taken together, we show the power of genetics to evidence events of sociopolitical importance and highlight how DNA can be used to better understand the behaviors of both people and institutions in the past.

State centralization occurs when previously separate communities are united, forming a single political system often associated with economy, trade, warfare, and culture. One example is the precolonial Kuba Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Using genetic data from over 690 individuals from the DRC, we compared individuals whose ancestors were part of the Kingdom to individuals from other neighboring groups. We found a genetic legacy of state formation that can be explained by the joining and subsequent mixing of groups at the time of state centralization, as well as evidence of gene flow facilitated by the Kingdom's infrastructure. We characterize the genetic history of this region and show the power of DNA to reveal information on societal systems where few written records exist.