De jure government take in non-corrupt political system

In a non-corrupt political system, public revenues are generally characterized by transparency, fairness, accountability, and a commitment to serve the interests of the general public. Under democratic conditions, political competition is the driving force that can lead officials to distribute extractive rents fairly. This article examines the de jure government take in a competitive political system for 19 gold-producing countries in Africa, employing local projection methods combined with fixed-effects regressions. The empirical findings reveal that non-corrupt democracies tend to demand a relatively lower government take in mining projects. As long as corruption remains low, democracies will demand a lesser take, but when corruption pervades, the demanded take is higher. Our findings are robust to various econometric specifications, including the use of inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) to address endogeneity issues, alternative specifications, and the inclusion of additional control variables such as government effectiveness, rule of law, and cultural fractionalization. Moreover, the results hold across different measures of political, legislative, and executive competition, as well as the economic and financial characteristics of the mines.