An alternative view of tax incidence analysis for developing countries

Despite decades of studies, tax incidence analyses for developing countries continue to be based on the same shifting assumptions used in developed country studies - despite obvious pitfalls. Taxes are assumed to be shifted forward to consumers or backward onto factor incomes. Developing countries typically have a much different nontax and regulatory policy than developed countries with such features as more protection, rationed foreign exchange, price controls, black markets, and credit rationing. The authors argue that these features can greatly complicate the incidence effects of taxes in developing countries. They also discuss the implications of their findings for country lending programs and comment on how the extent to which nontax policy reform has already been implemented affects the significance of the points raised in this paper.