Determinants of Own Source Revenue Mobilisation by Counties in Kenya

Stephen Khadondi

Abstract: The capacity of county governments to raise their own revenue is important for their sustainability and wellbeing. In the financial year 2014/15, county governments own revenues were 33 percent off-target. I studied the effects of urbanisation, intergovernmental grants, poverty and land area on county own revenue collection. I found that except for land area, all the independent variables were found to be statistically significant which led to the rejection of the null hypotheses. The study recommends that, county governments concentrate on developing urban areas, intergovernmental grants be increased and lowering of poverty be made a priority.

Keywords: Fiscal Decentralization, Fiscal capacity, Own revenue, Urbanisation, Intergovernmental grants