Episode 18: State Capacity, Taxation and Development -- with Augustin Bergeron

InequaliTalks

Governments in the world’s poorest countries face important revenue constraints. The ability to collect taxes directly affects the quality of public services and infrastructures, and is thought to undermine economic growth. Augustin Bergeron walks us through 3 experiments he conducted in D.R. Congo to investigate how the architecture of tax collection affects a state's fiscal capacity: who collects taxes, how much you can collect, and how you collect them.

Papers:

• "Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the D.R. Congo" by Pablo Balan, Augustin Bergeron, Gabriel Tourek, and Jonathan Weigel https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7dv4jpgv08noa9/central_v_local_paper_20210810.pdf?dl=0
• "The State Capacity Ceiling on Tax Rates: Evidence from Randomized Tax Abatements in the DRC" by Augustin Bergeron, Gabriel Tourek, and Jonathan Weigel https://www.dropbox.com/s/ftvzzpbby6yiaft/state_capacity_ceiling_taxrates_20210701.pdf?dl=0 -"Optimal Assignment of Bureaucrats: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Tax Collectors in the DRC" by Augustin Bergeron, Pedro Bessone, John Kabeya Kabeya, Gabriel Tourek, and Jonathan Weigel https://www.dropbox.com/s/0lf50fcw68sru0s/optimal_assignment_bureaucrats_20210630.pdf?dl=0

Recommendations:

• "Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages" by Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691199542/rebellion-rascals-and-revenue
• "King Leopold's Ghost" by Adam Hochschild https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961621-king-leopold-s-ghost