Wars, Local Political Institutions, and Fiscal Capacity: Evidence from Six Centuries of German History

Sascha Becker, Andreas Ferrara, Eric Melander and Luigi Pascali

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the effect of warfare on the development of state capacity and representative institutions using novel data on cities and territories in the German lands between 1200 and 1750. More specifically, we show that cities with a higher conflict exposure establish more sophisticated tax systems, but also develop larger councils, councils that are more likely to be elected by citizens, and more likely to be independent of other local institutions. These results are consistent with the idea of a trade-off between more efficient taxation and powersharing proposed in earlierwork. We make head way on establishing a causal role of war sby using changes to Germannobles’ positions within the European nobility network to instrument for conflict.

Keywords: WARFARE; POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS; STATE CAPACITY (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Wars, Local Political Institutions, and Fiscal Capacity: Evidence from Six Centuries of German History (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:1182

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