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Does reduced trade tax revenue affect government spending patterns?

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
  • Michael O. Moore
  • Maurizio Zanardi
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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2011
<mark>Journal</mark>International Tax and Public Finance
Issue number5
Volume18
Number of pages25
Pages (from-to)555-579
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Many skeptics of trade liberalization in the developing world argue that lowering trade taxes can cause significant fiscal pressures in countries particularly reliant on these taxes and result in a reallocation of resources away from important development goals. This paper evaluates whether there is evidence that central governments systematically change the composition of spending priorities in the wake of lowered trade tax revenues as a share of total government revenues. We find no systematic evidence for this concern in a sample of 51 developing countries for the 1991 through 2005 period.