Taxing for inequalities: gender budgeting in the Western Balkans

Abstract

This article seeks to illuminate structural limits of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) by analysing the interplay between economic and fiscal reforms, promoted by International Financial Institutions (IFIs), and gender budgeting initiatives in the Western Balkans. GRB is the core concept bridging revenue mobilization and gender equality in the work of IFIs. However, as the Western Balkans experience demonstrates, GRB initiatives are best characterized as “empty gestures” towards gender equality as they cannot compensate for the continued adverse effects of IFIs overall policies.

Keywords:

• Gender responsive budgeting
• VAT
• Western Balkans
• revenue mobilization
• consumption-led growth
• financialization
• households

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Janet Stotsky, Jacqui True, our anonymous reviewers, and RIPE editors on their substantive and editorial comments on several drafts of this article. The ultimate responsibility for its content rests, of course, with the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this article, the Western Balkans includes: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia, Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. In January 2019, FYR Macedonia changed name to the Republic of North Macedonia.

2 There were some notable country variations; for example in Montenegro, credit expansion relied mostly on external sources while a rise in domestic deposits, partly to do with strong remittances was more important in in Albania and Kosovo (Murgasova et al. 2015, p. 71).

3 According to Matti Kohonen of ActionAid, when IMF staff is asked about how Christine Lagarde’s words on gender being macro-critical in tax policy are implemented, “what we hear […] is push-back on gendered impacts of VAT, that as long as its revenues are spent well, it will be fine for women” (Bretton Woods, 2019).

4 Tax system and tax policy in Kosovo were created by UNMIK. Until the declaration of independence in 2008, the central fiscal authority rested with the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General. Fiscal Economic Council was partly staffed by Kosovars and had an advisory role. After declaration of independence, fiscal sovereignty moved to local institutions and the Kosovo government immediately took to reforming VAT rates. It increased standard rate (from 16% to 18%), and introduced a reduced rate (8%) for some categories, alongside 0% rated goods. At the same time, however, Kosovo has a very low rate of tax compliance, especially in personal income taxes, so VAT represents a disproportionately high percent of tax revenue – almost 80%.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vesna Bojičić-Dželilović

Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic is researcher with the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her main area of research is political economy of conflict and development, post-communist transition, civil wars, and international aid. She has published on these topics from a comparative perspective in a range of academic journals and books. She holds PhD in Economics and MA in Development Economics.

Aida A. Hozić

Aida A. Hozić is an associate professor of International Relations at the University of Florida, United States. Her research is situated in the intersections of international political economy, cultural studies and security studies. She is the author of Hollyworld: Space, Power and Fantasy in the American Economy (2002) and Scandalous Economics: The Politics of Gender and Financial Crises (2016) with Jacqui True.