Does urbanization increase the local tax base in a context of decentralization in sub-Saharan Africa?

We assess the effect of urbanization on the local tax base for 14 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2002-2017. Africa's increasing urbanization, observed since the early 1980s, has been accompanied by some decentralization and devolution of responsibility for public goods provision. We estimate a panel data model using the two-stage least squares method. Our results show that urbanization increases the level of local revenues in sub-Saharan Africa. Fiscal decentralization is favoured in the case of democratic regimes and good governance, by the development of education and the increase of youths with jobs in urban areas.