中文摘要
横跨多个学科的大量文献研究了殖民统治的影响，但对去殖民化的后果关注较少。本文利用一个新近构建的1900—2015年非洲国家财政史数据集，分析去殖民化对财政能力的影响（财政能力定义为来自相对难以征收、需要更多行政基础设施的税收的收入）。分析采用交错（分批）双重差分方法，并通过堆叠事件研究加以实施。研究发现，去殖民化之前不存在可识别的前期趋势，而去殖民化约5–6年后财政能力开始大幅提升。这一结果——意味着后殖民时期非洲存在大规模的国家建构活动——对多种替代解释的检验、替代对照组的使用以及广义合成控制方法的应用均稳健。我们还表明，该效应并不能由民主化或公共品供给的改善所解释。我们的概念框架则提出，后殖民国家之所以能够提高来自难以征收税源的税收收入，是因为其更高的合法性程度改善了公民的纳税意愿。我们提供了与这一渠道相符的历史证据。我们的发现——即殖民统治者对财政能力的投资少于独立后的政府——为理解殖民统治的后果以及政府财政能力差异的决定因素提供了新的视角。
Abstract
A vast literature across several academic disciplines studies the impact of colonial rule, but less attention has been paid to the consequences of decolonization. This paper uses a recently-constructed dataset on the fiscal history of African countries from 1900 to 2015 to analyze the impact of decolonization on fiscal capacity (defined as revenue from taxes that are relatively difficult to collect and that require more administrative infrastructure). The analysis adopts a staggered difference-in-difference approach, implemented using a stacked event study. It finds no discernible pre-trends prior to decolonization, and a substantial increase in fiscal capacity starting about 5–6 years after decolonization. This result – which implies substantial state-building activity in postcolonial Africa – is robust to tests for a variety of alternative explanations, the use of alternative control groups, and the use of generalized synthetic control methods. We also show that this effect is not explained by democratization or improved public goods provision. Our conceptual framework instead posits that post-colonial states were able to increase tax revenues from hard-to-collect sources because their higher degree of legitimacy improved citizens’ tax morale. We offer historical evidence that is consistent with this channel. Our finding – that colonial rulers invested less in fiscal capacity than did post-independence governments – sheds new light on the consequences of colonial rule, and on the determinants of variation in governments’ fiscal capacity.