Impact of Geography on Institutions in Agricultural and Nomadic Societies

Haiwen Zhou

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: How geography affects the choice of institutions is studied in a theoretical model. In this model, nations are located around a circle. Rulers compete through choosing tax rates, the level of military spending, and the degree of formality of institutions. Geographic condition is captured by population density. It is shown that societies with higher population densities choose lower tax rates, establish more formal institutions, and give government officials lower levels of autonomies than those with lower population densities do. A higher level of external threats induces a ruler to choose a higher level of autonomy for officials. The model is illustrated by comparing institutions of agricultural and nomadic regimes in ancient China.

Keywords: Geography and institutions; political economy; agricultural society; nomadic society; rule-based governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N45 O53 P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/126510/1/MPRA_paper_126510.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:126510

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().