Dominance Testing of Social Sector Expenditures and Taxes in Africa

December 1, 1999

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David E. Sahn, and Stephen D. Younger Dominance Testing of Social Sector Expenditures and Taxes in Africa, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 1999) accessed November 22, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper examines the progressivity of social sector expenditures and taxes in eight sub-Saharan African countries. It uses dominance tests to determine whether health and education expenditures redistribute resources to the poor. The paper finds that social services are poorly targeted. Among the services examined, primary education tends to be most progressive, and university education is least progressive. The paper finds that many taxes are progressive as well as efficient, including some broad-based taxes such as the VAT and wage taxation. Taxes on kerosene and exports appear to be the only examples of regressive taxes.

Subject: Education, Expenditure, Health, Health care, Household consumption, Income, National accounts

Keywords: Africa, Budget data, Demand, Dominance result, Education, Expenditure data, Function estimate, Gini coefficient, Government of Côte d'Ivoire, Government of Guinea, Government of Madagascar, Government of Tanzania, Government Uganda, Health, Health care, Income, Income distribution, Lorenz curve, Primary education, Tax, Taxes, Test result, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

44
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 1999/172
Stock No:

WPIEA1721999
ISBN:

9781451858556
ISSN:

1018-5941

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