The Level of Development and Tax Revenues in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Abstract

In this study, three distinct panel models, namely the Pool Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Fixed Effect (FE), and Random Effect (RE) models, were utilized to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment, trade openness, inflation rate, proportion of value added in agriculture, proportion of value added in industry, civil liberties, political rights index, official development assistance, and human development index on tax revenue in the six ASEAN countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, over the period of 2005 to 2021. The FE model was deemed more appropriate than the Pooled OLS model, as indicated by the FE test. Furthermore, a Hausman test was conducted, which revealed that the FE model was more suitable than the RE model. Regarding the empirical findings of the fixed effects (FE) model, it was observed that four indicators, namely FDI, TRADE, INF, and HDI, exhibit a statistically positive correlation with tax revenue. This implies that an increase in these variables would facilitate the promotion of tax revenue. Conversely, two variables, ARG and CIVLIB, despite exhibiting statistically significant correlations with tax revenue, demonstrate negative effects. This leads to the conclusion that an increase in these indicators would result in a decline in tax revenue.