Case Study Instructions SPS5067: Global Development, Taxation and Finance

Purpose of the assignment

This is a written assignment of 2,000 words (+/- 10%) (bibliography not included in word count). It is designed to reflect the kind of task that is performed by people who work on the financing of development, in research, policy and advocacy roles. By writing a case study and learning about a country in-depth, you will be able to better apply theories from the course to a specific empirical context and use data as evidence for or against an argument. This skill will serve you well in the essay too. Furthermore, being able to draw on knowledge from a particular context will help you ground the more abstract theories from the articles we cover in seminars.

Your case study report should not be a list of facts. Only provide facts and figures that are pertinent to the argument/claims/analysis you are including. Your report should be a piece of academic analysis motivated implicitly by the following question: How does your chosen country finance the processes of development, which actors are involved and what issues arise?

What to include and (suggested) structure of the case study

Your case study should engage with some of the following points but can engage with others as you see fit. These are broadly in line with the different weeks of the course. You probably don’t have space to go into detail on all of these, but this is intended to give you some questions to think about to get you going.

(Note. The points below are just a general framework that can act as a starting point for the structure of your case study. This list is not exhaustive. You can cover additional aspects you think are relevant.)

· Include a clear opening paragraph summarising your ‘answer’ to the implicit question as an introduction to help focus the rest of your answer.

o For example, you might open a case study on Malawi with: ‘Malawi, a former protectorate of the British Empire, is one of the poorest countries in Africa. It is a landlocked country that relies on a few agricultural exports—mainly tobacco—and the government is heavily dependent on aid and borrowing to fund public services. In this case study, I will...’

· Background - introduce your country, tell us a little of the development indicators: poverty levels, gender-based inequalities, unemployment, etc.

o But, you should provide only background information that is necessary for the reader to understand your analysis. This could include things like:

§ A brief overview of history of the country, including its colonial legacies, and how this has shaped its approach to financing development.

§ The region it is in and how its geography frames the financing of development.

§ Key political or institutional events or changes that are relevant to your analysis.

• How healthy are the government finances of your country? What are their major exports/ industries of economic output?

• What is the situation with sovereign debt? Who are the major creditors? What polices have been put in place to service this debt and how does this impact public spending? Can the government provide health care (for example).

• Tell us a little about the politics of the country, democratic, authoritarian and how does this tie in with economic policies – state-led or market-led policies.  

• What are the challenges to raise taxes in your country? Who are the influential elites? What is the size of the informal sector?

• How does your country interact with the global political economy? Is it a country that offers tax havens for Multinational corporations and wealthy individuals? Who are they?

• Could you let us know how you think that this impacts upon the development of the country. Do you think this is a good thing or does it create a barrier to development?

• Is it reliant on aid? If so, from where? Does it receive investment from China or other countries for its infrastructure? How much? And what infrastructure?

Prioritise the points that are most important to your argument and build your case study around the factors that influence tax and financing in your chosen country. For example, if the country receives little or no investment from Chinese banks, you do not have to mention this.

In contrast, if a country is reliant on borrowing, and it is in debt distress, it is fine to have multiple paragraphs fully discussing the factors and context for this debt. Use your best judgement given what you have read about the country in question.

What sources you should draw on in your case study

In your case study, you will need to cite your sources and include evidence to get a good mark. Often the first things we look at when marking is the reference list so following this advice matters! You should cite all the sources you have used to justify claims about your country. You can cite journalistic sources, but you should not rely solely on them. Remember this is a piece of academic analysis so make sure you incorporate academic literature written about the country you are focusing on.

To do well in this assignment, you should incorporate theories and concepts from class and apply them to your country context and make sure they are fully cited. While this is a case study, it is still an assignment for this class so should be relevant to what we have covered in class.

The theories, concepts and readings from class can serve two important purposes (among others) in the case study. First, they can provide a more abstract context for an empirical detail you are including about the case. Second, they can help you spell out the implications of what an empirical detail may mean for the financing of development. Some of the most successful case studies I’ve seen have been ones that put information and sources about the case in active conversation with the concepts and theories from the class.

Incorporating your own evidence

You should also try to substantiate some of your points using data you find yourself online (similar to the exercises we’ve done in class). When using quantitative data, you can use plots, quote relevant summary statistics or do you own analysis.

When you do this, include a footnote which says ‘Student-generated graph using (dataset website you used)’. It is important to only include graphs that are helpful to the argument that you are making rather than just including them for the sake of it.

As a rule of thumb, I would only include graphs which cannot be easily summarised in a single sentence.

It is completely fine to summarise things like this in words rather than including a graph. Instead, graphs can be particularly useful to demonstrate interesting changes over time or comparisons across countries as a couple of examples.

If in doubt, please come talk to us. As for sources of data, there are numerous sources of data that will enable you to compile your case study analysis.

• Government of your chosen country

• International organisations – IMF, World Bank, OECD, United Nations

• Development banks

• Regional bodies, ECLAC, African Union, ASEAN,  

• Non-governmental organisations

You might also draw on data journalism done by journalists or plots produced by academics but make sure these are properly cited to the author(s) of the study.

See the course handbook for information on deadline extensions, plagiarism and the criteria we will use during the marking process.