The political economy of taxation

The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) requests research proposals for The political economy of taxation project. This project is part of the Domestic Revenue Mobilization (DRM) programme and supported by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). Proposals for original research that speaks to the core themes of this project and offers strong empirical or theoretical contributions will be considered.

Background

Government revenues from taxation are a critical source of public finances, supporting the fiscal space for economic development and public investments in the United Nations Agenda 2030: Sustainable Development Goals . And, indeed, a large amount of effort and resources is devoted to the development of tax systems in order to improve the revenue collection capacity of low- and middle-income countries.

High-income countries collect, on average, more than double the share of total revenu...