Countries where people have a say collect more tax

Rich countries collect more tax than poor ones. That part is obvious. What is not obvious is this: compare countries with the same income, and the ones where people have more say in how they are governed still collect noticeably more of their income in tax. The pattern shows up in every region of the world.

The pattern

Each dot is a country. Across the page is voice and accountability, a World Bank score for how far citizens can choose their government and speak freely, from about −2.5 (least) to +2.5 (most). Up the page is tax revenue: tax collected by the national government as a share of the whole economy (GDP).

Every figure here is r: how closely two measures rise and fall together, from −1 (one goes up as the other goes down) to +1 (they rise together). 0 means no link.

Is it just money?

The first suspect is wealth: rich countries tend to be both freer and better at collecting tax. So we compare countries with similar income (GDP per person). The link barely moves, from +0.58 to +0.51. We then also allow for religion, since the share of people who are Muslim lines up with region and history and could sit behind both. The link is still +0.45. Comparing countries only with others in their own region leaves +0.45.

A version that uses only each country’s rank, not its value, gives +0.50, so a few extreme countries are not producing it.

Does it hold everywhere?

Yes. Inside each region, comparing countries of similar income, the link runs the same way: weakest in Europe & Central Asia (+0.42) and strongest in Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan (+0.75). Leaving out any one region at a time keeps it between +0.44 and +0.54.

The big limit: it does not move over time

If voice and tax were tied together inside each country, we would expect a country’s tax take to rise in the years its voice score rose. It does not. Comparing each country only with itself over the years, and each year only with the same year elsewhere, the link is −0.02 across 155 countries. So this is a difference between countries, built up over a long time, not something that changes year to year.

Health spending follows the same line

Countries that score higher on liberal democracy also spend more on health than their income would suggest (+0.43). But once we also allow for how much tax a government collects, that link shrinks to +0.25. Much of the democracy and health spending link goes along with the bigger tax take.

What it might mean

There are several readings, and the data cannot pick between them. Governments that ask more of their people in tax may need to give them more say in return. People with more say may be more willing to pay. Or a third thing, such as a long history of strong public institutions, may go with both. Comparing countries only shows that the two go together.

What this cannot tell you

• It describes countries, not people. It says nothing about whether a given person pays more tax.
• Tax revenue here is national government tax only, so countries that tax mostly through states or regions look lower than they are.
• A link is not proof that one thing changes the other.

See the full figures for voice and accountability vs tax revenue and for liberal democracy vs health spending.

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• Where the rich move

These articles describe places, not people, and show links, not causes. Every article on PlaceStats.