Dissecting the Sinews of Power: International Trade and the Rise of Britain's Fiscal-Military State, 1689-1823 / Ernesto Dal Bó, Karolina Hutková, Lukas Leucht, Noam Yuchtman.

By:

Dal Bó, Ernesto

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w30754.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

Other classification:

Online resources:

Available additional physical forms:

Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers

Abstract: We evaluate the role of taxes on trade in the development of imperial Britain's fiscal-military state. Influential work, e.g., Brewer's (1989) "Sinews of Power," attributed increased fiscal capacity to the taxation of domestic, rather than traded, goods: excise revenues, coarsely associated with domestic goods, grew faster than customs revenues. We construct new historical revenue series disaggregating excise revenues from traded and domestic goods. We find substantial growth in taxes on traded goods, accounting for over half of indirect taxation around 1800. This challenges the conventional wisdom attributing the development of the British state to domestic factors: international factors mattered, too.

Tags from this library: No tags from this library for this title. Log in to add tags.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w30754 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

Total holds: 0

December 2022.

We evaluate the role of taxes on trade in the development of imperial Britain's fiscal-military state. Influential work, e.g., Brewer's (1989) "Sinews of Power," attributed increased fiscal capacity to the taxation of domestic, rather than traded, goods: excise revenues, coarsely associated with domestic goods, grew faster than customs revenues. We construct new historical revenue series disaggregating excise revenues from traded and domestic goods. We find substantial growth in taxes on traded goods, accounting for over half of indirect taxation around 1800. This challenges the conventional wisdom attributing the development of the British state to domestic factors: international factors mattered, too.