Working Papers

This paper examines the performance of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) in Benin and Burkina Faso since its introduction in the early 1990s. Both countries are witnessing a gradual rise in tax revenue over the study period. The paper also delivers a sectoral breakdown of inefficiencies in VAT-revenue collection in the two countries. We additionally decompose VAT gap in to ‘compliance gap’ and the ‘policy gap’. We find that the sectors responsible for ‘compliance gap’ are largely similar in the two countries. The gaps in VAT collection represent a considerable loss in potential tax revenue. Addressing them will support the ‘Domestic Resource Mobilization’ (DRM) efforts of the two countries. (download)

R. Houssa

Social protection has come to feature more and more prominently on international and national development agendas. This quest for social protection in developing countries raises an important question: how can social protection act and be supported as an instrument for redistribution of wealth at the national level? Assessing and enhancing the redistributive potential of social protection mechanisms requires a multidimensional analysis and approach, encompassing political, technical, institutional and financial considerations. This study reports on a two-phased research combining conceptual work (Fonteneau & Van Ongevalle, 2015) with case studies in Senegal and Morocco in order to build and test a theoretical framework that can guide the assessment of the redistributive potential of social protection mechanisms in a developing context. (download)

J. Van Ongevalle

We attempted to investigate the impacts on enterprise performance of two agricultural subsidy projects carried out by the BTC-Benin in 2008-2015. During the working process we encountered several problems. First, the data on the activities of entrepreneurs is incomplete and of poor quality. Second, there are various methodological problems related to the design of the projects that do not allow a clear identification of control and treatment groups for the projects. As a result, we cannot infer any observed difference in performance of entrepreneurs to the project. We were therefore not able to assess the impact of these past projects. Instead, we successfully launched a collaboration with BTC-Benin to design a randomized impact evaluation on a new project that started in January 2016.(download)

R. Houssa

Taxation is crucial for national governments to finance key public goods and services. But in developing countries, tax mobilization levels are quite low. This research analyses taxpayer behaviour in Sub-Saharan Africa as a result of weak institutions. Using the generalized structural equation modelling with Afrobarometer’s round 5 (2011/2013) survey data in 29 SSA countries, the results show that individuals’ attitudes towards paying tax are significantly dependent on the quality of institutions. More precisely, when the quality of institutions is perceived as good, individuals are more likely to pay taxes... (download)

R. Nikiema