States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints

Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772

“…The central authority had not yet been divided between executive, legislative, and judiciary branches; instead, the power was shared between kings and parliaments and its balance determined whether regimes were more absolutist or parliamentary. The rise of state capacity of the early modern states has been demonstrated by Kıvanç Karaman and Şevket Pamuk (2010) and recently discussed in detail by Noel Johnson and Mark Koyama (2017).…”

“…Conversely, weak central authority transferred the power to the local elites who benefited from institutional differences and personalised privileges. Similarly, Johnson and Koyama (2017) argued that centralised and strong governments of early modern France and Prussia managed to suppress the attempts by local elites to extract rents by which they decreased exchange costs on the domestic market. The negative effects of tax predation and political fragmentation were identified by Mark Dincecco (2010).…”

“…According to Timothy Besley and Torsten Persson (2011), a state can promote prosperity only if it possesses (1) legal capacity denoting the authority and infrastructure to create and enforce the law and (2) fiscal capacity representing the means to finance its operations. With this study, I contribute to the growing literature on the role of centralisation and state capacity in promoting economic growth and market development before 1800 (Bonney 1995;O'Brien 2011;Chilosi, Schulze, and Volckart 2018;Dincecco and Katz 2016;Dimitruk 2018;Epstein 2001;Johnson and Koyama 2017). I complement the earlier studies that predominantly focused on fiscal capacity with an original study of the impact of legal capacity.…”

The Paradox of Power: Understanding Fiscal Capacity in Imperial China and Absolutist Regimes

“…Their model suggests that when enough tax collecting agents are dishonest and monitoring is expensive, permitting such bribery (and paying the agent a low, "capitulation wage") incentivizes agents to remit the highest amount of taxes. 6 For excellent overviews of recent contributions to the literature on state capacity in economics and political science, see Dincecco (2014) and Johnson and Koyama (2017). 7 Dincecco (2009) stresses the role representative institutions played in generating fiscal capacity through increased taxation and lower sovereign credit risk.…”

Money and monetary stability in Europe, 1300–1914

“…63 It has been conjectured that increases in fiscal capacity might have aided growth through market integration, nation building, defense, justice, but the impact is not empirically well-documented and tested. See Johnson and Koyama (2017) for a comprehensive review.…”