What is the level of state capacity in developing countries today, and what have been its drivers over the past century? We construct a comprehensive new dataset of tax and revenue collection for 46 African polities from 1900 to 2015. Descriptive analysis shows that many polities in Africa have...

This book explores what happened in the transition economies of China, Vietnam and Myanmar from both macro and micro perspectives, and questions whether the governments of these countries are capable of implementing effective reform and transformation