Anders Jensen, Harvard Kennedy School

"Technology and Tax Capacity: Evidence from Local Governments in Ghana"

Abstract

This paper studies the role of technology in improving tax capacity in the developing world, focusing on local property taxation in Ghana. We randomize the use of a new technology designed to help revenue collectors locate property owners to deliver tax
bills. We find that the technology increases bill deliveries by 27 percent and, surprisingly, increases tax collections by 103 percent. To reconcile these experimental findings, we build and estimate a dynamic time-use model in which revenue collectors
respond to the new technology by shifting their allocation of time toward learning about households’ propensity to pay and subsequently collecting from those with the highest payment propensity. The model’s predictions are consistent with ex-
perimental evidence on collector time allocations, knowledge, and collection strategies. Our theory highlights how technology designed to solve one problem can help overcome other challenges once behavioral changes by users of the technology are taken into account.

Anders Jensen is Associate Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, he received his PhD in Economics from London School of Economics in 2016 and spent one year at NBER as a post-doctoral fellow before joining HKS. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER, and an International Research Associate at IFS.
Anders Jensen's research focuses on public economics and development economics.

One set of projects  seeks to study the factors that shape the capacity to tax and the choice of tax policy over the long run of development. Ultimately, this line of work aims to shed light on how should, and can, a government go from raising 5-10 percent of GDP in taxes to around 35-40 percent, while encouraging development more broadly.

A second line of work consists in working with tax authorities and other government departments in developing countries. The starting point here is the specific structure, policies and issues of a given country. Through close collaborations and the use of large micro-datasets, these projects study what governments can do, given constrained capacity to tax, to incrementally improve tax administration, tax enforcement, tax policy, and tax morale. In this line of work, he is currently collaborating with governments in Ghana, Zambia, Liberia, and Brazil.
You can read more about Anders Jensen here
CEBI contact: Hjalte Fejerskov Boas