Financing the State: Government Tax Revenue from 1800 to 2012, 31 countries (ICPSR 38308)

Version Date: Apr 21, 2022

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
Per F. Andersson, Lund University; Thomas Brambor, New York University, Columbia University

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38308.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

This dataset presents information on historical central government revenues for 31 countries in Europe and the Americas for the period from 1800 (or independence) to 2012. The countries included are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany (West Germany between 1949 and 1990), Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In other words, the dataset includes all South American, North American, and Western European countries with a population of more than one million, plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Mexico. The dataset contains information on the public finances of central governments. To make such information comparable cross-nationally the researchers chose to normalize nominal revenue figures in two ways: (i) as a share of the total budget, and (ii) as a share of total gross domestic product. The total tax revenue of the central state is disaggregated guided by the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001 of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which provides a classification of types of revenue, and describes in detail the contents of each classification category. Given the paucity of detailed historical data and the needs of our project, researchers combined some subcategories. First, they were interested in total tax revenue, as well as the shares of total revenue coming from direct and indirect taxes. Further, they measured two sub-categories of direct taxation, namely taxes on property and income. For indirect taxes, they separated excises, consumption, and customs.

Citation

Andersson, Per F., and Brambor, Thomas. Financing the State: Government Tax Revenue from 1800 to 2012, 31 countries. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-04-21. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38308.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Funding

European Research Council (284313)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Country

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Hide

Time Period(s)

1800 -- 2012
Hide

Study Purpose

The goal of this study is to provide the most comprehensive data on government revenues for the selected countries from 1800 (or independence) until today. Another goal is to create long time series that are internally consistent within a country over time and that connect to contemporary datasets which in turn allow easy continual updates in the future.

Study Design

Researchers assembled information on the public finances of central governments as well as the level of economic activity of more than a dozen commonly used cross-national databases. To complement and adjudicate between existing databases, they combined information from these existing data collection efforts with additional country-specific sources. For more information on sampling and study design, please see the P.I. codebook.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

All South American, North American, and Western European countries with a population of more than one million, plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Mexico.

Unit(s) of Observation

Year, Country

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

This study includes variables on countries' nominal and real Gross Domestic Product, government revenues, and shares of direct, indirect, income, property, customs, excise, and consumption taxes.

Hide

Original Release Date

2022-04-21

Hide

Notes