One of the foremost challenges to state-building in weak states is the collection of

sucient revenue for the government to supply public goods. States in the developing

world are often plagued by bureaucratic and enforcement weaknesses that make direct

collection dicult, and they compete with other actors who collect \taxes" informally.

How can weak states develop a responsive tax base under these conditions? Which

appeals are most eective in shifting the perceptions and actions of potential taypayers?

This project examines the eectiveness of dierent tax appeals intended to increase

income tax payment in the informal sector. We experimentally assigned 1,496 informal

sector market vendors in Lagos, Nigeria, to an informational intervention that varied the

framing of tax appeals (public goods versus enforcement) and the identity of the agent

delivering the tax appeal (state or non-state). We nd that trust in the actor delivering

the appeal does mediate the eectiveness of tax appeals, as does individuals' past

experience of state-provided services. We also present results that are consistent with

the idea that the position of both individuals and social intermediaries in clientelistic

networks aects individual responsiveness to tax appeals. These ndings suggest that

the emergence of tax bargains between states and citizens can be aected by two

contextual elements, the presence of non-state "social intermediaries" and the strength

of a countervailing clientelistic system.