Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
The importance of seigniorage relative to other sources of government revenue differs markedly across countries. This paper tries to explain this regularity by studying a political model of tax reform. The model implies that countries with a more unstable and polarized political system will have more inefficient tax structures and, thus, will rely more heavily on seigniorage. This prediction of the model is tested on cross-sectional data for seventy countries. The authors find that, after controlling for other variables, political instability is positively associated with seigniorage. Copyright 1992 by American Economic Association.