Asbath ALASSANI

DR LEO - Working paper 2022-12

This paper complements the literature on the determinants of tax revenue mobilization by providing an important first step on the impact of women's political empowerment on tax revenue mobilization in developing countries. A sample of 66 countries for the period 1995 to 2019 were used to estimate the results using fixed effects techniques and the generalized method of moments (GMM). The results indicate that women's political empowerment has a positive effect on tax collection in developing countries. This effect is attributed to improved governance and institutional quality, as well as the provision of essential goods and services, which enhance tax compliance and expand the tax base. This finding is robust to several robustness tests, specifically changing the definitions of women's empowerment, disaggregating tax revenues, adding additional control variables, and exploring heterogeneity. Furthermore, the analysis of transmission mechanisms provides evidence that better governance and institutional quality on the one hand and increased public spending, especially on education, on the other, are channeled through which women's political empowerment positively affects tax revenues in developing countries. To meet the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the inclusion and empowerment of women, particularly in the political arena, is a transition to investing in fiscal capacity, promoting governance and thereby improving tax collection in developing countries.