Fiscal Rules and the Compliance debate: Why do Countries adopt Rules and fail to comply?

We study the compliance with fiscal rules via various national numeric rules. Based on 20 sub-Sahara African countries with 57 fiscal rules in force from 1997 to 2016, our analysis identifies determinants among the rule specific characteristics, as well as their macroeconomic and political environments. To meet the objectives of our study, we employ a […]

Determinants of tax revenue performance in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

This paper investigates the determinants of tax revenue performance in all 15 Southern African Development Community countries during 1990-2010, using panel data. The investigation makes use of two estimation techniques in testing for country specificity. These are the least squares dummy variables fixed effects and the feasible generalised least squares by Park (1967) and Kmenta […]

Young Democracies and Government Size: Evidence from South America

We investigate in this paper the hypothesis that when democracies are young, or still fragile and unconsolidated, the size of government tends to increase, predictably in an attempt of redistribution, or to buy out the electorate, so that democracy becomes acceptable and “the only game in town”. For that we use a sample of all […]

Local Municipalities and progress with the delivery of basic services in South Africa

In 1994, South Africa adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and emphasised the delivery of services to meet basic needs. Since then, great strides have been made to redress past social inequalities. However, analysis of these successes have been limited to national or provincial aggregates, when much of the responsibility for meeting the RDP […]