How Do Wars Make States?: Institutional Trust and Attitudes toward Tax Compliance in Wartime Ukraine

• In Event: The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Ukrainian Society

Abstract

How Do Wars Make States? Institutional Trust and Attitudes toward Tax Compliance in Wartime Ukraine
Marc P. Berenson and Sarah Birch
King’s College London

War, states and taxes have long been linked. Leaders need funds to wage war, and this spurs them to build administrative infrastructures that enable them to tax their populations effectively. Less is known about how citizens respond to these efforts during wartime. This paper draws on a series of cross-sectional surveys carried out in Ukraine in 2020, 2022 and 2023 to probe the impact of the Russian invasion of February 2022 on institutional trust - citizen trust in the state - and attitudes toward taxation. Using a difference-in-differences approach for identification, we find that the war spurred institutional trust, but that attitudes and behavioral dispositions related to the tax regime shifted less noticeably. We also find lower levels of both institutional trust and willingness to pay taxes in the regions most acutely affected by conflict.

Author

• Marc P. Berenson, King's College London (UK)