Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/331389 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
WIDER Working Paper No. 57/25
Version Description: 
Correction: An error in the ISBN displayed below was corrected on 19 September 2025.
Publisher: 
The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Bellicose theories of state-building suggest that wars enable the emergence of strong states via the mechanism of increased war-time fiscal capacities. We explore the hitherto littleanalysed micro-level foundations of this claim. Does the experience of war increase public support for higher taxation? Furthermore, is this support limited to only defensive purposes, or does it extend to other war-related but forward-looking goals like post-war reconstruction and cohesion-building? We implement a survey experiment during the ongoing war in Ukraine to address the above questions. We find that war changes citizen support for taxation at the intensive but not the extensive margin: war-related primes do not affect the proportion of respondents willing to pay more tax. However, among those ready to do so, defence- and cohesion-related purposes increase the amount and duration of tax hikes considered acceptable. Our findings complement conventional elite-centric models of war-related state-building and ongoing debates about Ukraine's post-war governance.
Subjects: 
war
state-building
taxation
fiscal capacities
Ukraine
experiment
micro-level
JEL: 
D91
F51
G41
H20
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-9267-616-2
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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