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Wars and State Capacity

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Author Info
Timothy Besley
Torsten Persson

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Abstract

The article builds a simple model to investigate how different types of armed conflict shape fiscal capacity: the state's ability to raise revenue from taxes. It starts from the simple observation that external war tends to generate common interests across groups in society, whereas internal, civil war entails deep conflicting interests across groups. Our model predicts that--compared to a society without conflict--civil wars lead to smaller investments in fiscal capacity, whereas prospects of external war generally lead to larger investments. Correlations in international data on conflicts and taxation are, by and large, consistent with these predictions. (JEL: H10, N40, O10) (c) 2008 by the European Economic Association.

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File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/JEEA.2008.6.2-3.522
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Publisher Info
Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Journal of the European Economic Association.

Volume (Year): 6 (2008)
Issue (Month): 2-3 (04-05)
Pages: 522-530
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Handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:6:y:2008:i:2-3:p:522-530

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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This page was last updated on 2008-12-19.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.