Tax, Welfare and Inequality

Fuel subsidies in Nigeria are enormous – around USD 3.9 billion – almost double the health budget. Such subsidies come at great cost: the opportunity costs of such spending on other development objectives are large; the distribution of resources to the state governments is reduced; the vast majority of the subsidy goes to better off Nigerians; and…

Nigeria is faced with substantial economic and health burdens caused by tobacco smoking. The economic burden of smoking accounts for approximately 1.3 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP. In terms of its health impact, 4.9 per cent of all deaths in 2019 were attributed to smoking related diseases. The thousands of Nigerians that die annually from…

There are substantial differences in the spread of the pandemic and the policy response to it between high and low-income countries (LICs). In terms of case numbers, the pandemic has affected high and middle income countries (HICs and MICs) much more severely than LICs: deaths per million people have remained typically well below 1 in…

This paper uses administrative data from Value Added Tax (VAT) returns to provide insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Rwanda. We show that the lockdown in Rwanda had a severe impact on the domestic economy, despite relatively low case numbers. However, the economy quickly rebounded after restrictions were lifted, with overall sales…

Most people in low-income countries contribute substantially to the financing of local public goods through informal revenue generation (IRG). However, very little is known about how IRG works in practice. We produce novel evidence on the magnitude and regressivity of IRG and its relationship with the state in a fragile context, Somalia. We rely on…

Cigarettes have generally become less affordable over time in developed economies, with increased taxes and low income growth, but more affordable in developing countries, where there have been minimal changes in taxes (Chaloupka et al. 2019). Studies by the WHO suggest that 80% of the world’s smokers live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and…

This paper predicts the fiscal and public health outcomes from a change in the excise tax structure for cigarettes in Ghana. More than 5,000 people are killed by diseases caused by tobacco every year in Ghana (Tobacco Atlas 2018). Currently the country has a unitary tax administration approach, with a uniform ad valorem tax structure…

In this chapter, Moore and Prichard provide two different kinds of answers to the question of how governments of developing countries can increase tax revenues. First, they discuss seven potential revenue sources that governments of developing countries tend to use less than they should. Mining, tobacco and alcohol, the incomes and wealth of rich people,…

The importance of tenure security for development and wellbeing is often reduced to questions about how titles can guarantee rights, overlooking the contested and layered nature of property rights themselves. We use the case of Lagos to analyse property rights as ‘analogue’ rather than ‘digital’ in nature – things that only exist by degree, where…

Increasing emphasis is being placed on the need for low income countries to collect more tax revenue. In parallel, the need for equitable tax systems is also gaining prominence. While African countries have made remarkable progress in increasing tax collections, taxation in many African countries is inequitable in various respects. For example, many revenue authorities…