Teaching the Tax Man: Experimental Evidence on Bureaucrat Training and Tax Compliance in Tanzania

This project examines how bureaucrat training influences tax compliance in Tanzania by focusing on the human capital of frontline tax collectors – a crucial but understudied dimension in the tax compliance literature. While existing studies emphasize institutional design, monitoring, and incentives, much less is known about how the skills and capabilities of individual bureaucrats affect state capacity.

We combine administrative data from the Tanzanian Revenue Authority (TRA) with a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of tax collector training implemented by the TRA Training Institute, a well-established institution for building administrative capacity. The RCT experimentally varies training modules to identify which components – technical knowledge, behavioral integrity, or communication skills – most effectively improve post-deployment performance. Administrative data allow us to link trainees’ in-class performance with their subsequent tax collection outcomes, providing a unique opportunity to causally assess the role of bureaucratic human capital in revenue mobilization.

By highlighting how investments in bureaucratic skills translate into higher tax compliance and better public revenue performance, this study introduces a novel human-capital perspective to fiscal capacity research and generates actionable evidence for governments seeking to strengthen tax administrations in low-income settings.