Volha Lazuka
Visiting research fellow
Long-term Drivers of Taxation in Francophone West Africa 1893–2010
Author
Summary, in English
Which factors have driven fiscal revenue in Sub-Saharan Africa in the long run? We address this question by studying quantitatively the long-term relationship between fiscal outcomes, economic expansion and external dependency in four francophone West African countries – Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal – between 1893 and 2010. Using panel co-integration modelling we find a long-term relationship between, on the one hand, tax revenue and local economic development, proxied by international trade, and, on the other hand, tax revenue and developments of the economy and taxation in the former colonizing power France. The results indicate that economic expansion has been a significant factor in driving the long-term development of tax revenue in West Africa, just as it was in historical Europe, but also point to the historical vulnerability and external dependency of the fiscal systems of the four West African countries. We suggest that the wider implication of these results is that they point to the importance of deepening our understanding of how domestic contexts interact with external economic and institutional external forces to shape African fiscal systems, in contrast to factors such as inter-state warfare that are ubiquitous in narratives of historical European taxation and state development.
Department/s
- Department of Economic History
- Centre for Economic Demography
Publishing year
2019-02-01
Language
English
Pages
294-313
Publication/Series
World Development
Volume
114
Issue
February
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Economic History
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1873-5991