[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v51y2014icp1-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax farming and the origins of state capacity in England and France

Author

Listed:
  • Johnson, Noel D.
  • Koyama, Mark
Abstract
How did modern and centralized fiscal institutions emerge? We develop a model that explains (i) why pre-industrial states relied on private individuals to collect taxes; (ii) why after 1600 both England and France moved from competitive methods for collecting revenues to allocating the right to collect taxes to a small group of financiers—an intermediate institution that we call cabal tax farming—and (iii) why this centralization led to investments in fiscal capacity and increased fiscal standardization. We provide detailed historical evidence that supports our prediction that rulers abandoned the competitive allocation of tax rights in favor of cabal tax farming in order to gain access to inside credit, and that this transition was accompanied by investments in standardization. Finally (iv) we show why this intermediate institution proved to be self-undermining in England, where it was quickly replaced by direct collection, but lasted in France until the French Revolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2014. "Tax farming and the origins of state capacity in England and France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-20.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:51:y:2014:i:c:p:1-20
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2013.07.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498313000326
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eeh.2013.07.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Damme, Eric, 1989. "Renegotiation-proof equilibria in repeated prisoners' dilemma," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 206-217, February.
    2. Dincecco,Mark, 2013. "Political Transformations and Public Finances," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107617759.
    3. Brian D. Wright & Kenneth M. Kletzer, 2000. "Sovereign Debt as Intertemporal Barter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 621-639, June.
    4. Maurer, Noel & Gomberg, Andrei, 2004. "When the State is Untrustworthy: Public Finance and Private Banking in Porfirian Mexico," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 1087-1107, December.
    5. David Stasavage, 2002. "Credible Commitment in Early Modern Europe: North and Weingast Revisited," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 155-186, April.
    6. N. S. B. Gras, 1912. "The Origin of the National Customs-Revenue of England," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 27(1), pages 107-149.
    7. Steven C.A. Pincus & James A. Robinson, 2011. "What Really Happened During the Glorious Revolution?," NBER Working Papers 17206, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "A Constant Recontracting Model of Sovereign Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 155-178, February.
    9. Nicola Gennaioli & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "State Capacity and Military Conflict," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(4), pages 1409-1448.
    10. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    11. Drelichman, Mauricio & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2011. "Serial defaults, serial profits: Returns to sovereign lending in Habsburg Spain, 1566-1600," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-19, January.
    12. Johnson, Noel D., 2006. "Banking on the King: The Evolution of the Royal Revenue Farms in Old Regime France," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 963-991, December.
    13. Grossman, Herschel I & Van Huyck, John B, 1988. "Sovereign Debt as a Contingent Claim: Excusable Default, Repudiation, and Reputation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1088-1097, December.
    14. K. Kivanç Karaman & Sevket Pamuk, 2011. "Different Paths to the Modern State in Europe: The interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 37, European Institute, LSE.
    15. Balla, Eliana & Johnson, Noel D., 2009. "Fiscal Crisis and Institutional Change in the Ottoman Empire and France," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 809-845, September.
    16. Ashworth, William J., 2003. "Customs and Excise: Trade, Production, and Consumption in England 1640-1845," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199259212.
    17. O'Brien, Patrick, 2001. "Fiscal exceptionalism: Great Britain and its European rivals: from civil war to triumph at Trafalgar and Waterloo," Economic History Working Papers 22369, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    18. Cox, Gary W, 2011. "War, Moral Hazard, and Ministerial Responsibility: England After the Glorious Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 133-161, March.
    19. Metin M. CoÅŸgel & Thomas J. Miceli, 2009. "Tax Collection in History," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 399-420, July.
    20. Patrick O'Brien, 2011. "The nature and historical evolution of an exceptional fiscal state and its possible significance for the precocious commercialization and industrialization of the British economy from Cromwell to Nels," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(2), pages 408-446, May.
    21. Mauricio Drelichman & Hans‐Joachim Voth, 2011. "Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Philip II," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1205-1227, December.
    22. R.J. Bonney, 1979. "The Failure of the French Revenue Farms, 1600–60," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 32(1), pages 11-32, February.
    23. Gelderblom, Oscar & Jonker, Joost, 2011. "Public Finance and Economic Growth: The Case of Holland in the Seventeenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 1-39, March.
    24. Douglas W. Allen, 2005. "Purchase, Patronage, and Professions: Incentives and the Evolution of Public Office in Pre-Modern Britain," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(1), pages 57-79, March.
    25. Robert Ashton, 1956. "Revenue Farming Under The Early Stuarts," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 8(3), pages 310-322, April.
    26. Regina Grafe, 2012. "Distant Tyranny: Markets, Power, and Backwardness in Spain, 1650-1800," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9625.
    27. Eugene N. White, 2004. "From privatized to government‐administered tax collection: tax farming in eighteenth‐century France," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 57(4), pages 636-663, November.
    28. Quinn, Stephen, 2001. "The Glorious Revolution'S Effect On English Private Finance: A Microhistory, 1680–1705," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 593-615, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Noel D., Johnson & Mark, Koyama, 2012. "Standardizing the fiscal state: cabal tax farming as an Intermediate Institution in early-modern England and France," MPRA Paper 40403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    3. Christiaan Bochove, 2014. "External debt and commitment mechanisms: Danish borrowing in Holland, 1763–1825," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 652-677, August.
    4. Geloso, Vincent J. & Salter, Alexander W., 2020. "State capacity and economic development: Causal mechanism or correlative filter?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 372-385.
    5. D'Maris Coffman & Judy Z. Stephenson & Nathan Sussman, 2022. "Financing the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire of 1666," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1120-1150, November.
    6. Dincecco, Mark & Katz, Gabriel, 2012. "State Capacity and Long-Run Performance," MPRA Paper 38299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Chilosi, David, 2014. "Risky Institutions: Political Regimes and the Cost of Public Borrowing in Early Modern Italy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 887-915, September.
    8. Seghezza, Elena, 2015. "Fiscal capacity and the risk of sovereign debt after the Glorious Revolution: A reinterpretation of the North–Weingast hypothesis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 71-81.
    9. Michael Tomz & Mark L.J. Wright, 2013. "Empirical Research on Sovereign Debt and Default," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 247-272, May.
    10. Dan Bogart, 2016. "The East Indian Monopoly and the Transition from Limited Access in England, 1600–1813," NBER Chapters, in: Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development, pages 23-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador, 2013. "Sovereign Debt: A Review," NBER Working Papers 19388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Mauricio Drelichman & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Risk sharing with the monarch: contingent debt and excusable defaults in the age of Philip II, 1556–1598," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 9(1), pages 49-75, January.
    13. Ernesto Dal Bó & Karolina Hutková & Lukas Leucht & Noam Yuchtman, 2022. "Dissecting the Sinews of Power: International Trade and the Rise of Britain’s Fiscal-Military State, 1689-1823," NBER Working Papers 30754, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Irigoin, A, 2012. "Bounded Leviathan: or why North & Weingast are only right on the right half," MPRA Paper 39722, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Leonor Freire Costa & Susana Münch Miranda, 2023. "Reputational recovery under political instability: Public debt in Portugal, 1641–83," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(3), pages 871-891, August.
    16. Mauricio Drelichman & Hans‐Joachim Voth, 2011. "Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Philip II," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1205-1227, December.
    17. Vesperoni , Alberto, 2013. "War Finance and the Modern State," NEPS Working Papers 6/2013, Network of European Peace Scientists.
    18. Metin M. CoÅŸgel & Thomas J. Miceli, 2009. "Tax Collection in History," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 399-420, July.
    19. Mauricio Drelichman & Joachim Voth, 2007. "Lending to the borrower from hell: Debt and default in the age of Philip II, 1556-1598," Economics Working Papers 1164, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2009.
    20. Ma, Debin & Rubin, Jared, 2019. "The Paradox of Power: Principal-agent problems and administrative capacity in Imperial China (and other absolutist regimes)," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 277-294.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    State capacity; Fiscal capacity; Standardization; Tax farming; Transaction costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N23 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:51:y:2014:i:c:p:1-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.