Fiscal Relations, Class Politics, and the Election Year in Ghana’s COVID-19 Context

Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) 33rd Annual Meeting

15 Pages Posted: 27 Jul 2021

See all articles by King Carl Tornam Duho

King Carl Tornam Duho

Dataking Consulting

Anna-Riikka Kauppinen

Max Planck Cambridge Centre for Ethics, Economy and Social Change

Date Written: June 25, 2021

Abstract

In Ghana, West Africa, the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the national election year. This paper analyses the intersection of pandemic-related fiscal interventions and the electoral calendar, analysing how this temporal confluence shaped the kind of mechanisms of redistribution adopted during the pandemic. The NPP government, known for its right-leaning ‘pro-business’ approach to economic policy-making, designed fiscal interventions that did not effectively address the lower-income sectors of the society, while some of these interventions, including 50% subsidy of water and electricity bills for businesses, appealed to their elite and middle-class voting base. Combining insights from the anthropology of tax and macroeconomics, we raise broader questions about the diversity of tools needed to effectively combat multi-dimensional poverty in Ghana, including the role of direct cash transfers. Ultimately, we argue that Ghana’s pandemic-related fiscal interventions speak to the historical class politics at the heart of state-citizen fiscal relations.

Keywords: Fiscal relations, poverty, COVID-19, taxation, deficit spending, Ghana

JEL Classification: D63, E62, H2, H75, I14, Z13, Z18

Suggested Citation

Duho, King Carl Tornam and Kauppinen, Anna-Riikka, Fiscal Relations, Class Politics, and the Election Year in Ghana’s COVID-19 Context (June 25, 2021). Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) 33rd Annual Meeting, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3885997 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3885997

King Carl Tornam Duho (Contact Author)

Dataking Consulting ( email )

Accra, +233
Ghana
+233 (Fax)

Anna-Riikka Kauppinen

Max Planck Cambridge Centre for Ethics, Economy and Social Change ( email )

Trinity Ln
Cambridge, CB2 1TN
United Kingdom

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