Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Inequality, Tax Attitudes and Spatial Divide in Africa

Domestic revenue mobilization remains a critical challenge in Africa, where tax compliance is shaped by a wide range of economic, social, and political factors. This paper examines how local spatial inequality in public good provision affects attitudes toward taxation, using data from the sixth round of the Afrobarometer survey across 28 African countries. Spatial inequality is proxied by a Gini index of nighttime light intensity. We address endogeneity through an instrumental variable strategy that exploits path dependence in the spatial diffusion of economic activity. Our results show that higher local spatial inequality is associated with stronger pro-tax attitudes, consistent with greater demand for redistribution. The effect is particularly pronounced for individuals in the bottom half of the wealth distribution, broadly in line with median voter model predictions, and is reinforced by trust in institutions and support for democracy. However, the dominant source of heterogeneity is geographic: the positive relationship between spatial inequality and pro-tax attitudes is driven primarily by individuals located far from economic centers, with the effect largely absent among urban respondents. These findings point to a substantial spatial divide in redistributive preferences, with remote populations standing to gain most from redistribution in unequal environments.