ICTD Working Paper 19

A major obstacle to cross-country research on the role of revenue and taxation in development has been the weakness of available data. This paper presents a newGovernment Revenue Dataset (GRD), developed through the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD). The dataset meticulously combines data from several major international databases, as well as drawing on data compiled from all available International Monetary Fund (IMF) Article IV reports. It achieves marked improvements in data coverage and accuracy, including a standardised approach to revenue from natural resources, and holds the promise of significant improvement in the credibility and robustness of research in this area. This paper sets out the issues with existing sources and explains the process of creating the new dataset, including a discussion of remaining limitations. It then presents data on tax and revenue trends over the past two decades, while a concluding section briefly considers potential strategies for, and barriers to, more effective data collection in future.

Authors

Wilson Prichard

Wilson Prichard is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and Chief Executive Officer of the International Centre for Tax and Development. His research focuses on the relationship between taxation and citizen demands for improved governance in sub-Saharan Africa.

Alex Cobham

Alex is a development economist and chief executive at the international Tax Justice Network, and a visiting fellow at King's College London IDI. Over the last fifteen years Alex has held various policy and research posts, including as a research fellow at the Center for Global Development, as chief policy adviser at Christian Aid and head of research at Save the Children (UK), and at Oxford as a junior economics fellow at St Anne's college and as a researcher at Queen Elizabeth House.

Andrew Goodall

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