PhD Defence: Ali Compaore

From Tax Revenue Mobilization to Financial Development: Essays on Financing for Development

Jury

Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, Professeur, Université Clermont Auvergne
Samuel Guérineau, Maître de Conférences-HDR, Université Clermont Auvergne
Désiré Avom, Professeur, Université de Dschang (Cameroun)
Lisa Chauvet, Professeur, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Eugénie W. H. Maiga, Professeur, Université Norbert Zongo (Burkina Faso)
Emilie Caldeira, Maître de Conférences, Université Clermont Auvergne
Emmanuel Pinto-Moreira, Directeur du Département des économies pays, Banque africaine de développement

Abstract

Drawing essentially on empirical analyses and mainly focusing on developing countries, the present thesis is concerned with tax revenue mobilization (Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 4) and conflicts (Chapter 5) and provides key policy messages. Chapter 2 estimates the tax effort in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) based on a new and original non-resources tax revenue database over 1980-2015. It finds an average tax effort score of 0.57 over the period in SSA countries, corresponding to an average non-resources tax-to-GDP ratio of 13.2. This result suggests a low tax effort and the existence of room for moretax revenue collection. SSA countries could raise up to 23.2 percent of GDP in taxes in full-use their tax potential through an improved tax system. In Chapter 3, the thesis explores the impact of relying on a diversified tax structure on tax revenue mobilization and the fiscal resilience, while proposing a new and the first cross-country tax revenue diversification index (RDI). Results show that diversifying the portfolio of tax revenue streams improves revenue collection. Interestingly, the results suggest that tax revenue diversification reduces tax revenue volatility, thus bringing to the data long-held views about the prominence of tax revenue diversification for fiscal resilience strengthening. Chapter 4 studies the impact of unlocking access to financial services on tax capacity. Its finds strong evidence that greater access to financial services increases non-resources tax revenue, highlighting tax revenue-harnessing opportunities from a more inclusive financial sector for developing countries. In the fifth and last Chapter, the thesis analyses the impact of conflict and political instability on the probability to experience banking crises. It shows that conflicts and political instability indeed significantly increase the probability of systemic banking crises in developing countries. Interestingly, this chapter finds that conflicts and political instability in neighboring countries also increase the likelihood of banking crises in a given country. These results, therefore, call for strong and firm policy action from non-conflict affected countries to prevent conflicts. In addition, policymakers should pay great attention to conflicts in neighboring countries as their banking systems may suffer negative spillovers from their neighbors given that banks operate across borders.

Keywords

Tax Effort, Non-resource tax revenue, Sub-Saharan Africa, Revenue Diversification Index (RDI), Fiscal Resilience, Financial Inclusion, Conflict, Political Instability, Developing Countries.