This paper was produced as part of the FCDO-funded Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TaxDev) project. TaxDev aims to contribute to more effective tax policy-making in lower-middle-income countries through applied research and policy analysis, and improving the analytical capacity of partner governments.

The authors would like to thank Hazel Granger, Kyle McNabb, Mark Miller, Harshil Parekh and Chris Wales at ODI, and Anne Brockmeyer, Lucie Gadenne, David Phillips, Yani Tyskerud and Ross Warwick at IFS, for their suggestions and comments on this paper.

Iain Steel is an ODI Research Associate providing tax policy research and technical assistance to the TaxDev programme.

Tom Harris is a Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Country Programme Manager for the TaxDev programme’s work in Ethiopia.