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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.

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.

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 petroleum fiscal system for a country is essentially the taxation structure, including royalty payments, that has been established by legislation. More broadly, the fiscal system includes all aspects of the contractual and taxation framework that governs the relationship between the host government and an international oil company. Worldwide, there are many different fiscal systems with different taxation and contractual terms. These vary from country to country and some countries use more than one system. Countries, for example, may offer concessionary system arrangements or service and production sharing agreements. Whichever system prevails, the issue for an oil company is how it can recover costs expended and how will the profit be divided. This depends upon tax regulations and the principles of the economics of the life of a field. The focus of this book is on the mechanics of the various kinds of fiscal systems and the factors that drive exploration and development economics. The emphasis is on practical aspects of petroleum taxation and industry/government relationships. There is also fertile ground for considering the philosophy of petroleum taxation which has changed the industry. Legal and operational aspects of contract/fiscal terms are also examined to provide a foundation in the dynamics of international negotiations. Both industry and government viewpoints are addressed in this book since a complete grasp of the subject requires an understanding of the aims and concerns of both sides. There are few things more discouraging for a government?s national oil company than an unsuccessful licensing round. Yet prolonged, inconclusive negotiations can be equally frustrating for oil companies. This book has been written for those interested in petroleum taxation and international negotiations, and the way to carry out successful exploration and development projects. Much of the subject has evolved years ago whilst some aspects of taxation are timeless. Examples are included to give the reader a wide perspective about the implementation of fiscal systems.

"Tax, Politics, and the Social Contract in Africa" published on by Oxford University Press.

For decades, taxation has featured centrally on the international development agenda. In the 1990s, tax reforms to modernise tax systems were implemented under the auspices of international financial institutions. In the 2000s, taxation became linked to good governance, and in 2015, the Addis Action Agenda made taxation an integral part of the effort of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Based on European state-building narratives, taxation is expected to enhance societies' political engagement around the use of tax revenues and to make states more accountable, leading to a fiscal contract. This dissertation studies this expectation in the case of Senegal. It asks whether, how and under what conditions taxation features in state-society accountability relations in Senegal, focussing specifically on the argument applied by societal actors demanding accountability from the state. With an interpretive approach and based on extensive fieldwork, interview data and a survey with informal, economic actors in Dakar, the dissertation finds that taxation only features to a limited extent. Where taxation does feature, its meaning is shaped by prominent institutional features of state-society accountability relations in Senegal such as network-based and electoral accountabilities. Theoretically, these findings provide important nuances to the fiscal contract theory that led to a reconceptualisation of the fiscal contract into two distinct concepts. Above all, the dissertation highlights the imperative of taking into consideration the contextual conditions that shape state-society accountability relations, the meaning of taxation and, hence, the potential and actual role of taxation in prompting more accountable governance.

The objective of this paper is to analyse how contractual stabilization devices have evolved since the late 1990s, based on a survey of 20 countries and a review of the literature and evidence on stabilization clauses. Although fiscal stability is a commonly cited attribute of a desirable upstream petroleum regime, one of the commonly observed features of existing regimes is the lack of stability. The paper studies the major triggers that push host governments to revise the fiscal terms to which they originally agreed with investors; amongst various economic and political factors, one of the obvious drivers is the oil price. Chasing the price of oil, however, is a burdensome and inefficient strategy, as oil is an internationally traded commodity where short-term price volatility is the norm. The paper's three broad conclusions include: First, classical stabilization models have not been successful in practice; Second, the more modern clauses are more likely to treat changes in fiscal terms symmetrically, and may be equally beneficial to governments and oil companies; Third, modern stabilization clauses can allow policymakers to consider the overall tax system and its impact on revenue and growth, without worrying about the specific impact on the oil and gas sector, and without penalizing investors in the sector. Fiscal stability clauses in developing countries will remain a key feature of contractual agreements and oil and gas laws for years to come. However, the effectiveness of the more modern clauses in achieving the desired outcome remains as questionable as that of previous stability models, particularly in countries which continue to lack the administrative capability to enforce these mechanisms, and where government policy in general and investment laws and the judiciary in particular lack credibility.

The concept of fiscal credibility is a watermark of some of the fiscal policy literature, but beyond an intuitive parallel with monetary policy, it remains not well defined, nor measured. This paper provides an explicit measure of fiscal credibility, based on the anchoring of private expectations onto official targets. I document how credibility varies among a sample of 26 European countries and evolves over 1995-2019. I find that private agents do not trust all governments uniformly. Country differences are mainly driven by past fiscal performance and institutions (fiscal rules and councils). Conversely, I find that credibility impacts sovereign financing conditions, as well as macroeconomic performance. Governments should thus strive to be (à la Rousseau) or appear (à la Machiavelli) credible.