Do political determinants affect revenue collection? Evidence from the Indian states

摘要

In a recent study, Dash and Raja (2013) have shown that the size and composition of public expenditure of Indian states are systematically linked with political determinants such as the extent of government fragmentation, strength of opposition, electoral years, and ideology. This study extends the questions to whether there are similar links to revenue collections by the governments that rule the different states in India. Using the same time period of the previous study, four revenue measures related to tax collection and internal debt are considered and four different sets of hypotheses are developed by linking the political determinants with each of the revenue measures. The overall findings of the study suggest that the government-specific political determinants are significant and robust determinants of revenue collections of the Indian states.