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Financing social protection remains a key constraint in developing countries. This project focuses on two alternative public finance approaches, and the related political economy factors, that can facilitate the financing of social protection systems:
- taxation of consumption and natural resources
- income and payroll taxation.
This is a component of a larger research project ‘The economics and politics of taxation and social protection’ that sheds light on the system-wide impacts of social protection and tax systems in developing countries.
Determining how best to publically finance social protection involves important political economy considerations
Shifting public expenditure towards social protection through taxations of consumption and natural resources, and sustaining its political legitimacy is difficult if it implies big losses for companies. On the other hand, redistribution approach via income and payroll taxation could reduce work incentives for marginal workers, and taxes on non-labour income may reduce incentives to save. Tax payers would be more willing to finance social protection if they were direct beneficiaries of such reforms.
The project looks at these important political economy considerations and generates model predictions under heterogeneous societal conditions. This research improves understanding about which features foster successful adoption of social protection reforms.
SAPI database aims to expands data collection efforts
To facilitate the research, a new database on Social Assistance, Politics and Institutions (SAPI) was generated. SAPI provides a synthesis of longitudinal and comparable information on social assistance programmes in developing countries, and country-level information on economic and social performance and political institutions.
This is part of the 'The economics and politics of taxation and social protection' project.
Team
Focal point: Miguel Niño-Zarazúa
Assistant: Kati Hirvonen
Communications: Annett Victorero
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The Politics of Social Protection in Eastern and Southern AfricaThe notion that social protection should be a key strategy for reducing poverty in developing countries has now been mainstreamed within international development policy and practice. Promoted as an integral dimension of the post-Washington Consensus...
Policy Brief
The politics of social protection in Eastern and Southern AfricaSince the mid-1990s, there has been in Africa something of a ‘quiet revolution’ in poverty reduction strategies with the proliferation of social assistance programmes that entail cash transfers to the poor. The past two decades have also been...
Journal Article
Institutionalizing SegregationPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
Cash Transfers and Gender Differentials in Child Schooling and LaborPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
Schooling and Labor Market Impacts of Bolivia's Bono Juancito Pinto ProgramPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
Educational Assistance and Education Quality in IndonesiaPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
The National Care System in UruguayPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension SchemePart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
Basic Old‐Age Protection in Latin AmericaPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Article
Welfare and Redistributive Effects of Social Assistance in the Global SouthPart of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Journal Special Issue
Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global SouthThis special issue presents an analysis of the recent evolution of social assistance in the developing world, looking at its complex typological configuration. It partly reflects the complex demographic and epidemiological transitions and rapid...
Journal Article
Trade, poverty, and social protection in developing countriesHow do shifts in trade affect social protections for the poor? Although the fraction of the world's population considered the “extreme” poor has fallen by over one-half over the past quarter century, many of those lifted above the global poverty line...
Journal Article
How does petty corruption affect tax morale in sub-Saharan Africa?Revenues from taxation gain in importance to finance economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa. One obstacle to enhancing the willingness to remit taxes can be the extortion of bribes by public officials. Using micro-level data from the...
Journal Article
Taxation and social protection under governance decentralisationGovernments do not have perfect information regarding constituent priorities and needs. This lack of knowledge opens the door for groups to lobby in order to affect the taxes they pay the government. We examine the political economy of a...
Journal Article
The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in Sub-Saharan AfricaDo intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs)? There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants “crowd out” local revenues. Most...
Working Paper
Educational assistance and education quality in IndonesiaWe examine the evolution of educational assistance in Indonesia, following two decades of government decentralization, and its effect on education quality. Using Indonesia Family Life Survey data, we exploit as exogenous rule the variation in the...
Working Paper
Schooling and labour market impacts of Bolivia’s Bono Juancito PintoIn 2006, the Bolivian government introduced a large-scale cash transfer programme, Bono Juancito Pinto (BJP). Exploiting the exogenous variation of the programme expansion, this paper examines the impact of BJP on schooling and child labour. The...
Working Paper
The negotiated politics of social protection in sub-Saharan AfricaSocial assistance programmes proliferated and expanded across much of the global South from the mid-1990s. Within Africa there has been enormous variation in this trend: some governments expanded coverage dramatically while others resisted this. The...
Working Paper
Campaign externalities, programmatic spending, and voting preferences in rural MexicoThis study presents an analysis of the electoral impacts of one of the most prominent conditional cash transfers in the world: Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. Using population censuses, and POP’s administrative records and...
Working Paper
The long(er)-term impacts of Chile Solidario on human capital and labour incomeThis paper examines Chile Solidario, a social protection programme that provides poor households in Chile with preferential access to a conditional cash transfer programme designed to facilitate investments in children’s health and education. We...
Working Paper
Smoothing or strengthening the ‘Great Gatsby curve’?We examine the heterogeneous and dynamic impact of China’s New Rural Pension Scheme on intergenerational wealth dependence using a nationally representative longitudinal household survey covering the period 2011–13. We adopt an instrumental quantile...
Working Paper
The global politics of social protectionSince the early 2000s international development agencies have actively promoted social protection as a new global public policy. This process can be understood as flowing from related shifts within the global political economy and of development...
Working Paper
The politics of scaling up social protection in KenyaLiterature on social protection in Kenya shows progress in implementation of cash transfers but not the social health insurance scheme. With a dearth of explanation for this contrasting promotion of social protection, this paper examines the role of...
Working Paper
Social protection, electoral competition, and political branding in MalawiCompetitive elections in many parts of Africa generate powerful incentives to presidential candidates (and to a lesser extent political parties) to brand themselves in ways that transcend regional or ethnic loyalties. In Malawi, Joyce Banda—President...
Working Paper
Poverty, changing political regimes, and social cash transfers in Zimbabwe, 1980–2016Since 2000, Zimbabwe has been under some pressure to provide more fully for its children. It is not clear whether child poverty has worsened, although AIDS, drought, and economic mismanagement have all compromised poverty reduction. In any case...
Working Paper
Building a conservative welfare state in BotswanaBotswana’s welfare state is both a parsimonious laggard in comparison with some other middle-income countries in Africa (such as Mauritius and South Africa) and extensive (in comparison with its low-income neighbours to the north and east). Coverage...
Working Paper
Fiscal capacity and social protection expenditure in developing nationsThere is scant analysis on the causal relationship between fiscal capacity and social protection expenditure in the developing world. We investigate the causal relationship between fiscal capacity of the state and social protection expenditure...
Working Paper
Worker retraining and transfer paymentsWe conduct an incentive-theoretical analysis of political economy considerations in the design of social protection programmes in developing countries to accompany economic reforms. We focus on two aspects of social protection—the provision of...
Working Paper
‘Affordability’ and the political economy of social protection in contemporary AfricaThe ‘affordability’ of new or expanded social protection programmes depends on more than an assessment of the fiscal costs or the poverty-reducing or developmental benefits. Diverse international organizations have shown that programmes costing less...
Working Paper
Regime type, inequality, and redistributive transfers in developing countriesThe debate on whether democracy and inequality increase the level of redistribution is ongoing. We construct a model that predicts higher probability of redistribution in democracies than autocracies through social transfers. Higher inequality leads...
Working Paper
The expansion of economic protection for older adults in Latin AmericaOver the past two decades, many Latin American countries have expanded the economic protection of older adults by developing non-contributory pensions or making eligibility rules more flexible. These policies have addressed long-standing coverage...
Working Paper
How does petty corruption affect tax morale in sub-Saharan AfricaRevenues from taxation gain importance to finance economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. Extortion of bribes by public officials can provide one obstacle for tax compliance. This paper uses micro-level data from the Afrobarometer to analyse how...
Working Paper
The role of public health insurance in protecting against the costs of ill healthIn the absence of health insurance, households have to self-insure against the risk of ill health, which may involve the use of mechanisms that have long-term consequences. This study analyses whether Mexican households are able to smooth consumption...
Working Paper
National Care System in UruguayIn this paper, we analyse two specific policies that make up the National Care System, a social policy being implemented in Uruguay. Through the calibration of a static tax benefit model, we estimate the distributive impact of the expansion of...
Working Paper
Optimal transfers with distribution regressionsSocial programmes for poverty alleviation involve eligibility rules and transfer rules that often proxy-means tests. We propose to specify the estimator in connection with the poverty alleviation problem. Three distinct stages emerge from the...
Working Paper
Constitutional social and environmental human rights and child health outcomes in Latin American countriesThis paper analyses the health-improving effects of introducing four different constitutional social and environmental human rights (health, free education, adequate living (or welfare), and environment) and the American Convention on Human Rights...
Working Paper
Government intervention need for social security improvement in the Democratic Republic of the CongoAfrican populations need better support through social protection mechanisms. Among those who need social security are millions of older people who, having worked all their lives in the formal sector, are in precarious situations with lower benefits...
Working Paper
The politics of promoting social protection in ZambiaThis paper examines the rise of the social protection agenda in Zambia, and demonstrates that this has two alternative drivers: shifting dynamics within Zambia’s political settlement and the promotional efforts of a transnational policy coalition. We...
Working Paper
Policy diffusion, domestic politics and social assistance in Lesotho, 1998–2012Lesotho is a small Southern African country that has introduced two national cash transfer programmes, the Old Age Pension and the Child Grant Programme. Although Lesotho has followed what has been called the ‘Southern African model’, the...
Working Paper
Ideational and institutional drivers of social protection in TanzaniaIn the early 2000s, there was low elite commitment to social protection in Tanzania. Yet, in 2012, the government officially launched a countrywide social safety net programme, and a year later it announced the introduction of an old age pension. In...
Working Paper
Trade, poverty, and social protection in developing countriesHow do shifts in trade affect social protections for the poor? Although the fraction of the world’s population considered the ‘extreme’ poor has fallen by over one-half over the past quarter century, many of those lifted above the global poverty line...
Working Paper
Cash transfers in Latin AmericaIn this paper, we present comparative evidence for eight Latin American countries regarding design and effects of cash transfers (CTs). On the basis of household survey data, we analyse their coverage, importance in household income, and effects on...
Working Paper
Political agency and public healthcareThe development of institutions of self-governance in India, and specifically the 2005 reform—the National Rural Health Mission that introduced village health and sanitation committees—provide a unique opportunity to study the effects of the...
Working Paper
The political economy of ‘linked’ progressive taxation in Africa and Latin AmericaOne key element in the reduction of poverty and (in Latin America) inequality has been the achievement of greater fiscal equity; we analyse one key part of this process, which is the earmarking of portions of tax revenue to be spent on progressive...
Working Paper
Social protection in an aspiring ‘developmental state’Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme is among the largest social protection programmes in Africa and has been promoted as a model for the continent. This paper analyses the political drivers of the programme, arguing that elite commitment can...
Working Paper
The politics of promoting social cash transfers in UgandaIn 2015 the Government of Uganda agreed to start rolling out a social pension programme, and increasing its own contribution to it. This was driven by the highly politicized efforts of a transnational policy coalition, led by international donors and...
Working Paper
The impact of intergovernmental transfers on local revenue generation in AfricaDo intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs) There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants ‘crowd out’ local revenues. Most...
Working Paper
Linking taxation and social protectionThe reduction of poverty, and more recently inequality, are pressing concerns in many low- and middle-income countries, not in the least as a result of the Sustainable Development Goals committing countries to significant improvements by 2030...
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Context
Main subject
This project is part of The economics and politics of taxation and social protection
Theme: 2014-18, Inclusion