Why Do Eastern African Countries Comply With OECD Tax Norms? How Network Effects Shape Policy Transfer in Anti-Profit Shifting Governance

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Vet, Cassandra; Yihdego, Abebe Gebrehiwot
• 署名单位: University of Antwerp
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983; 1748-5991
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.70157
• 发表日期: 2026-04-08
• 关键词: corporate tax avoidance; network effects; norm diffusion; oecd; socialization; Path dependence; COORDINATION; COMPETITION; POLITICS; CHALLENGES; avoidance; authority; diffusion; STANDARDS; finance

摘要

Widespread investments in OECD-style transfer-pricing audits across Sub-Saharan Africa stand in contrast to critiques that question the effectiveness and legitimacy of the OECD transfer pricing guidelines. Our process tracing design aims to explain why Sub-Saharan countries comply with OECD transfer-pricing guidelines by tracing why some African countries implement transfer-pricing audits while others do not. By comparing Kenya's, Uganda's, and Rwanda's compliance with Ethiopia's mock compliance, it reveals conditions supporting the implementation of suboptimal global standards. Drawing on historical institutionalist theory, we show that network effects create a compatibility advantage, enabling governments to increase revenue without undermining competitiveness. However, Ethiopia's approach is performative, and our findings emphasize two key conditions for compliance: the socialization of tax administrations into the transnational tax governance network influencing their policy feedback, and the presence and relative power of the financial service industry providing transfer-pricing advice.