Mark Dincecco is an assistant professor in the research area of Economics and Institutional Change at IMT. His book, Political Transformations and Public Finances: Europe, 1650-1913, will be published by Cambridge University Press in August 2011.
The book may be found at the CUP website.
Here is a short description. How did today?s rich states first establish modern fiscal systems? To answer this question, this book examines the evolution of political regimes and public finances in Europe over the long term. The book argues that the emergence of efficient fiscal institutions was the result of two fundamental political transformations that resolved long- standing problems of fiscal fragmentation and absolutism. States gained tax force through fiscal centralization and restricted the power of rulers through parliamentary limits, which enabled them to gather large tax revenues and channel funds toward public services with positive economic benefits. Using a novel combination of descriptive, case-study, and statistical methods, the book pursues this argument through a systematic investigation of a new panel database that spans eleven countries and four centuries. The book?s findings are significant for our understanding of economic history and have important consequences for current policy debates.
