Governance Quality and Tax Revenue Mobilization in Africa: Evidence From Micro‐Level Data

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between governance quality and tax revenue performance in 14 African countries across 2015, 2016, and 2022, using harmonized data from the Afrobarometer survey and the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) Government Revenue Dataset. It investigates whether public perceptions of political participation, institutional trust, corruption, democracy, and public service delivery are associated with differences in total, direct, and indirect tax‐to‐GDP ratios. Using predictive margins from linear models, countries are classified into high and low governance quality groups based on mean thresholds for each governance indicator. The findings reveal a complex and often inverse relationship between governance quality and revenue. Notably, the study identifies a statistically significant negative association between trust in tax departments and total tax revenue, indicating that lower trust environments often exhibit higher predicted tax‐to‐GDP ratios. Similarly, lower levels of institutional trust and satisfaction with democracy are associated with higher predicted ratios, particularly for direct taxes. Conversely, higher governance quality is more consistently associated with indirect tax performance, suggesting a shift in revenue composition rather than overall volume. These results challenge conventional assumptions that better governance uniformly leads to greater revenue mobilization, highlighting a nuanced pattern where tax extraction persists independently of perceived state legitimacy. The study contributes to debates on the fiscal social contract in Africa by demonstrating that revenue performance is not always aligned with governance legitimacy. It argues for a reorientation of tax reform beyond technocratic capacity‐building toward deepening institutional trust, service delivery, and political accountability to ensure a more sustainable and equitable revenue system.