Revenue Mobilization In Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges From Globalization

This paper evaluates the nature and extent of, and possible responses to, two of the central challenges that globalization poses for revenue mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): from corporate tax competition, and from trade liberalization. It does so using a new dataset with features needed to meaningfully address these issues: a distinction between resourcerelated and other revenues, and a disentangling of tariff from commodity tax revenue. Countries' experiences vary quite widely, non-resource revenues have been essentially stagnant. Corporate tax revenues have held up, despite a reduction in rates and evidence of substantial base-narrowing - something of a puzzle - and trade tax revenue reductions have been largely offset by other measures.