The main theme of this paper is that a more legitimate and responsive state appears to be an essential precondition for a more adequate level of tax effort in developing countries. While at first glance giving such advice to poor countries seeking to increase their tax ratios may not seem more...

This paper reviews the literature on tax assignment in decentralized countries. Ideally, own-source revenues should be sufficient to enable at least the richest subnational governments to finance from their own resources all locally-provided services that primarily benefit local residents....