Conference Agenda

The link between state history and contemporary economic outcomes, like development and governance, is well established, but the effect of state antiquity on fiscal capacity remains underexplored. This study examines whether longer historical experience with state-level institutions improves tax collection capabilities. Using data from 159 countries, we find that accumulated statehood experience positively impacts fiscal capacity. This relationship is robust across alternative measures of state antiquity and fiscal capacity, controls for standard fiscal capacity determinants, and considerations of heterogeneity. It also holds after addressing endogeneity concerns, including measurement errors and omitted variables. Our analysis reveals two key mechanisms through which state antiquity enhances fiscal capacity: fostering economic development and improving governance quality. Notably, it strengthens corruption control, government efficiency, and the rule of law. These findings highlight the enduring influence of historical statehood on modern fiscal capacity and its transmission through institutional and economic pathways.

We study the transition of sub-national fiscal multipliers’ efficiency in normal times across the structural characteristics’ threshold levels in the Indian states. Using the recently developed Panel Structural Threshold Regression Model, we identify latent groups across the states contingent on their structural characteristics. Our findings suggest that for Indian States capital outlay expenditure multipliers are higher than revenue and aggregate spending multipliers. We identify financial inclusion as one of the important state-level fiscal multiplier determinants. Our results suggest that state public debt has negative implications for all the categories of fiscal multipliers and across all the latent groups. Based on our study, we argue for a sustainable policy-oriented targeting framework, which includes threshold levels for public debt accretion as a sub-target.

Women in East Africa are enormously underrepresented in government with no more than one in every five cabinet positions being occupied by women. Women in cabinet are also less likely to hold high-prestige cabinet positions. This has ramifications on the implementation of policies that raise the living standards among the poorest segment of the population. This paper analyzes the extent to which gender inclusive cabinets foster pro-poor growth. We utilize the Who Governs dataset alongside the Worldwide Governance Indicators, and the World Income Inequality datasets in a regression discontinuity design setup. Results indicate that raising the share of women in cabinet above designated thresholds insignificantly affects the distribution of average pre-tax national incomes among the poorest half relative to the top income decile. These results hint at the low prestige positions held by the underrepresented women in cabinet.

How, and to what extent do tax policymaking processes impact tax revenue performance? This study assesses the effects of political institutions on tax systems in Africa to identify actionable strategies to enhance domestic revenue mobilisation in the region. Using a combination of quantitative and textual data, the main finding is that democratic accountability and practice show surprisingly less marked effects on tax systems in West Africa, particularly after controlling for basic tax handles that may moderate the probable interactions between institutions and tax administration. Also, results show that trade/labour unions have strong potential to influence tax system outcomes in the long run