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It is increasingly argued that bargaining between citizens and governments over tax collection can provide a foundation for the development of responsive and accountable governance in developing countries. However, while intuitively attractive, surprisingly little research has captured the reality and complexity of this relationship in practice. This book provides the most complete treatment of the connections between taxation and accountability in developing countries, providing both new evidence and an invaluable starting point for future research. Drawing on cross-country econometric evidence and detailed case studies from Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia, Wilson Prichard shows that reliance on taxation has, in fact, increased responsiveness and accountability by expanding the political power wielded by taxpayers. Critically, however, processes of tax bargaining have been highly varied, frequently long term and contextually contingent. Capturing this diversity provides novel insight into politics in developing countries and how tax reform can be designed to encourage broader governance gains

Unemployment remains a major problem for economic policy at the beginning of the millennium. Taxes and Unemployment investigates how tax policy affects labor market outcomes in industrialized countries and to what extent it can be used to combat unemployment. In particular, the wage and employment consequences of tax rate variations, the impact of changes in tax progression and of comprehensive tax reforms are analyzed. It is shown that the employment effects of tax policy depend crucially on the institutional features of the labor market. These features are often country-specific and include the strength of collective bargaining institutions relative to other mechanisms of wage determination, the tax treatment of the jobless, the legal incidence of taxes and the exact specification of the tax system. Therefore, Taxes and Unemployment advocates an approach to reducing unemployment which is tailored to the specific characteristics of labor markets. Moreover, the analysis indicates that tax reforms need to be supported by other policy measures to regain full employment

It is analyzed the impacts of outsourcing cost and wage tax progression under labor market imperfections with Nash wage bargaining and flexible outsourcing. With sufficiently strong (weak) labor market imperfection, lower outsourcing cost has a wage-moderating (wage-increasing) effect so that there is a negative (positive) effect on equilibrium unemployment. Higher tax progression, to keep the relative tax burden per worker constant, has a wage moderating and a positive effect on employment and negative effect on outsourcing.

Does joint taxation disadvantage women? To answer that question, this paper begins by reviewing unitary and bargaining models of intrafamily allocation, and then discusses the determinants of "bargaining power" in a world without taxes. It argues that wage rates rather than earnings are determinants of bargaining power, and then argues that productivity in household production is also a source of bargaining power. In the absence of human capital effects, joint taxation does not appear to disadvantage women in either divorce threat or separate spheres bargaining. Hence, the claim that joint taxation disadvantages women, if it is correct, depends on effects that operate through the incentives to accumulate human capital. But a satisfactory analysis of the effects of taxation on human capital awaits the further development of dynamic models of family bargaining. -- Joint taxation ; family bargaining ; household production

Various taxes influence wage and employment outcomes in efficiency wage models. These findings are extended by incorporating more comprehensive tax functions, additional tax parameters, union-firm wage bargaining, and balanced budget restrictions. Moreover, the importance of different effort functions is evaluated. It is shown that higher marginal tax rates, holding constant the level of taxes, reduce wages and increase employment. Higher level of taxes on income, labour cost and value-added can raise unemployment.

This book examines the politics of revenue bargaining in Africa in a time when attention to domestic revenue mobilisation has expanded immensely. Measures to increase taxes and other revenues can -but do not always- lead to a process of bargaining, where revenue providers negotiate for some kind of a return. This book offers in-depth analyses of micro-instances of revenue bargaining across five African countries: Mozambique, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda. All case studies draw on a common theoretical framework combining the fiscal contract theory with the political settlement approach, which enables a systematic exploration into what triggers revenue bargaining; how these processes unfold; and finally, if and when they reach an agreement (whether a fiscal contract or not). From the empirically rich case narratives emerges a story of how power and initial bargaining position influence not only whether bargaining emerges in the first place, but also the processes and their outcomes. Less resourceful taxpayers are in a more difficult position to raise their voice, but in some cases even these groups manage to ally with other civil society groups to protest against tax reforms they perceive as unfair. Indirect taxes such as VAT often trigger protests, and so do sudden changes in tax practices. Revenue providers rarely call for improved services in return for paying tax, which would be expected to nurture the foundation for a fiscal social contract. Instead, revenue providers are more likely to negotiate for tax reductions, implying that governments' effort to increase revenue is impeded. We do find many instances of state-society reciprocity when ruling elites try to be responsive to revenue providers' demands. Hence, this book gives insight into the nature and dynamics not only of revenue bargaining but of policy-making in general as well as the implications hereof for state-society reciprocity in Africa.

In a social custom model of union membership with wage bargaining, higher levels of company taxes lower wages while having uncertain employment effects. A higher marginal income tax rate increases employment. Changes solely in the level of income taxation, retaining marginal rates, have ambiguous wage and employment consequences. Endogenising union membership therefore does not alter the effects of tax changes in comparison to a right-to-manage model with exogenously fixed level of density.

Ogawa et al. (2006) analyze capital tax competition in a fixed-wage approach and show that the original results of Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) are not preserved in the presence of unemployment. In the present paper we challenge this view and investigate capital tax competition for some arbitrary institutional setting of the labor market. We find that if the labor market is characterized by some efficient bargaining solution, the results of Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986) are preserved.

I. The Logic of Tax Politics. 1. The Limits of Zero-Sum Logic. 2. An Asymmetric, Non-Zero-Sum Logic -- II. From Zero-Sum to Non-Zero-Sum Logic: The Transformation of American Tax Politics, 1894 to 1960. 3. The Short Life of Zero-Sum Redistribution. 4. The Establishment of Non-Zero-Sum Political Economy -- III. Growthmanship in the New Frontier. 5. The Macroeconomics of Market Stimulation. 6. Fiscal Redistribution in Two Dimensions. 7. The Politics of Non-Zero-Sum Democracy -- IV. Class Interests and Distributional Bargaining: The Investment Tax Credit of 1962. 8. Business and the Bargaining over the Forms of Subsidization. 9. Labor and the Bargaining over Payoff Reassurances -- V. The Breakdown of Intertemporal Coalition. 10. The Nixon Reversals: The Failure of Short-Run Distributional Payoffs. 11. The Ford Retrenchment: The Failure of Conservative Growthmanship. 12. The Carter Requiem: The Failure of Liberal Accord -- Conclusion: Continuity and Change for the Postwar Regime

1. Introduction -- 2. Voting patterns -- 3. Voting about the redistribution of income -- 4. How high might the revenue-maximizing tax rate be? -- 5. Bargaining and voting -- 6. Bargaining unexplained -- 7. What exactly is a duty to vote? -- 8. An alternative explanation of the chance of casting a pivotal vote -- 9. The problem of equity -- 10. Voting rights, property rights and civil rights -- 11. Assessing the citizen-candidate model -- 12. The significance of the probabilistic voting theorem

Traditional political economy models of taxation fail to explain why there is so little redistribution of wealth despite significant wealth inequalites. This is for two reasons: (1) The median voter approach cannot deal with a multidimensional policy-space and (2) wealth taxation affects well-organized and homogenous interest groups so that lobbying affects policy outcomes. In this paper the interaction of factor price bargaining and delegated tax-lobbying is studied. Two agents engage in lobbying: managers of large firms and trade union leaders. Low wealth taxation is the natural consequence of income maxmimization on the side of interest group leaders if (1) managers are in a position to appropriate part of the firms' revenues for themselves and (2) union members cannot monitor the lobbying activities of union leaders.