IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mhr/jinste/urnsici0932-4569(200503)1611_57ppapia_2.0.tx_2-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Purchase, Patronage, and Professions: Incentives and the Evolution of Public Office in Pre-Modern Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas W. Allen

Abstract

Prior to the 19th century virtually all European civil appointments were made through outright sale or patronage, and the offices were effectively private property. During the first half of the 19th century almost all of these offices converted to professional bureaucracies with salaried employees. This paper explains the choice over purchase and patronage prior to 1800, and the later transition to professions, using the NIE hypothesis that the crown was interesting in maximizing the value of its offices, and therefore, its own treasury. This hypothesis is tested by examining three branches of the British civil service: the military, judiciary, and treasury.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas W. Allen, 2005. "Purchase, Patronage, and Professions: Incentives and the Evolution of Public Office in Pre-Modern Britain," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(1), pages 57-79, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(200503)161:1_57:ppapia_2.0.tx_2-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/purchase-patronage-and-professions-incentives-and-the-evolution-of-public-office-in-pre-modern-britain-1016280932456054254452
    Download Restriction: Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen, Douglas W, 1998. "Compatible Incentives and the Purchase of Military Commissions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 45-66, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Crettez, Bertrand & Deffains, Bruno & Musy, Olivier & Tallec, Ronan, 2020. "State Capacity, Legal Design and the Venality of Judicial Offices," MPRA Paper 105009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Habib, Michel, 2015. "Multifaceted Transactions, Incentives, and Organizational Form," CEPR Discussion Papers 10432, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Allen, Douglas W., 2009. "A theory of the pre-modern British aristocracy," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 299-313, July.
    4. Noel D., Johnson & Mark, Koyama, 2012. "Standardizing the fiscal state: cabal tax farming as an Intermediate Institution in early-modern England and France," MPRA Paper 40403, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Touria Jaaidane & Olivier Musy & Ronan Tallec, 2023. "Rent-seeking, reform, and conflict: French parliaments at the end of the Old Regime," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(3), pages 249-275, March.
    6. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2014. "Tax farming and the origins of state capacity in England and France," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-20.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garrett Ryan Wood, 2022. "The organization of volunteer battalions in Ukraine," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 115-134, June.
    2. Allen, Douglas W., 2003. "Rules and rewards in the age of sail: a reply," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 212-220, April.
    3. repec:oup:ereveh:v:24:y::i:4:p:696-715. is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Yang, Der-Yuan, 2008. "On the elements and practices of monitoring," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 654-666, March.
    5. Allen, Douglas W., 2002. "The British Navy Rules: Monitoring and Incompatible Incentives in the Age of Fighting Sail," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 204-231, April.
    6. Ennio Piano, 2020. "Coase Goes to War: Contract Choice on the Battlefield," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 130(6), pages 1001-1023.
    7. Piano, Ennio E. & Rouanet, Louis, 2020. "Desertion as theft," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 169-183, April.
    8. Ennio E Piano & Byron B Carson, 2020. "Scalp-taking," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(1), pages 40-66, February.
    9. Ennio E. Piano & Louis Rouanet, 2020. "Economic calculation and the organization of markets," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 331-348, September.
    10. Ivan Ermakoff, 2011. "Patrimony and Collective Capacity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 636(1), pages 182-203, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L3 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(200503)161:1_57:ppapia_2.0.tx_2-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Thomas Wolpert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/jite .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.