The centre for tax analysis in developing countries

Institute for Fiscal Studies

Research Publications

This page features publications by the TaxDev team, partners, and affiliated researchers.

Publication

A survey of the Ethiopian tax system (2025–26)

This report provides an updated and comprehensive overview of Ethiopia’s tax system in 2025–26....

Publication

Who benefits from food tax exemptions in lower-income settings?

Tax exemptions for basic items exist worldwide, typically justified by governments as a way to reduce the cost of living for poorer households....

Publication

The hard road to higher revenues Lessons from cross-country experience of domestic revenue mobilisation

This report was originally published on odi.org on 17 September 2026 ...

Publication

A survey of the Ghanaian tax system (2026)

Ghana’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) has published an updated Survey of the Ghanaian Tax System, produced jointly with TaxDev researchers from the Ins...

Publication

Estimating the VAT gap in Ghana

The Government of Ghana has published a new report Estimating the VAT gap in Ghana....

Publication

Tax incentives, compliance costs, and VAT registration: evidence from India

Value-added tax (VAT) is the largest source of tax revenue for many developing country governments, and sales-based registration thresholds are a u...

Publication

Horizontal equity of taxation: citizen beliefs and policy preferences

Horizontal inequity occurs when employees and self-employed with the same income end up with different effective tax burdens, due to the difficulty...

Publication

Comparing tax and benefit microsimulation models: a guide for analysts in low- and middle-income countries

Distributional analysis is a crucial component of policymaking....

Publication

The cost of bureaucratic fragmentation: business tax evasion and revenue mobilization in a low-income country

We provide novel evidence on bureaucratic fragmentation and weak tax administrations as central enablers of low revenue mobilization in low-income ...

Publication

Formal labor market dynamics and development

This paper studies formal employment dynamics using linked employer–employee data from eight countries spanning a wide income range from Kenya to C...

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