Tiago Peixoto is regarded as one of the leading commentators and experts on Participatory Budgeting, not least through his work with the World Bank and elsewhere. In a new blog he cites recent international research on the relationship between engagement and increased satisfaction with local governance, especially in relation to a willingness to pay more tax! An extract is below:
"Quite a while ago, drawing mainly from the literature on tax morale, I posted about the evidence on the relationship between citizen engagement and tax revenues, in which participatory processes lead to increased tax compliance (as a side note, I’m still surprised how those working with citizen engagement are unaware of this evidence).
Until very recently this evidence was based on observational studies, both qualitative and quantitative. Now we have – to my knowledge – the first experimental evidence that links citizen participation and tax compliance. A new working paper published by Diether Beuermann and Maria Amelina present the results of a randomized experiment in Russia…it adds substantive support to the evidence on the positive relationship between citizen engagement and tax revenues"
