Calendrier du 13 mars 2019
Economic History Seminar
Du 13/03/2019 de 12:30 à 14:00
Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris
MONSON Andrew (New York University)
Constitutions, Credible Commitments, and Public Finance in Ancient Greece
The ancient Greek city-states developed strikingly modern methods of taxation and public debt. The ability to tax property and trade effectively as well as borrow money gave democratic city-states advantages in interstate competition. Apart from the well-known case of Athens, the literary and epigraphical evidence suggests a convergence of political and fiscal institutions from the fourth to first centuries BC across the Greek world and beyond. This paper relates the high fiscal capacity in democratic Greek states to constitutional rules, enabling them to commit credibly to policies that benefited taxpayers and creditors, prevent arbitrary expropriation, and thereby increase compliance. The conclusions are strengthened by comparison with oligarchical and monarchical regimes that tried to implement similar fiscal institutions.