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Paths toward the Modern Fiscal State: England, Japan, and China

Author

Listed:
  • He, Wenkai

    (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

The rise of modern public finance revolutionized political economy. As governments learned to invest tax revenue in the long-term financial resources of the market, they vastly increased their administrative power and gained the ability to use fiscal, monetary, and financial policy to manage their economies. But why did the modern fiscal state emerge in some places and not in others? In approaching this question, Wenkai He compares the paths of three different nations—England, Japan, and China—to discover why some governments developed the tools and institutions of modern public finance, while others, facing similar circumstances, failed to do so. Focusing on three key periods of institutional development—the decades after the English Civil Wars, the Meiji Restoration, and the Taiping Rebellion—He demonstrates how each event precipitated a collapse of the existing institutions of public finance. Facing urgent calls for revenue, each government searched for new ways to make up the shortfall. These experiments took varied forms, from new methods of taxation to new credit arrangements. Yet, while England and Japan learned from their successes and failures how to deploy the tools of modern public finance and equipped themselves to become world powers, China did not. He’s comparative historical analysis isolates the nature of the credit crisis confronting each state as the crucial factor in determining its specific trajectory. This perceptive and persuasive explanation for China’s failure at a critical moment in its history illuminates one of the most important but least understood transformations of the modern world.

Suggested Citation

  • He, Wenkai, 2013. "Paths toward the Modern Fiscal State: England, Japan, and China," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674072787, Spring.
  • Handle: RePEc:hup:pbooks:9780674072787
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Deng, Hanzhi, 2021. "The merit of misfortune: Taiping Rebellion and the rise of indirect taxation in modern China, 1850s-1900s," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108564, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Tuan-Hwee Sng & Chiaki Moriguchi, 2014. "Asia’s little divergence: state capacity in China and Japan before 1850," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 439-470, December.
    3. Koyama, Mark & Moriguchi, Chiaki & Sng, Tuan-Hwee, 2018. "Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 178-204.
    4. Ane Karoline Bak & Matilde Jeppesen & Anne Mette Kjær, 2021. "Fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa: conceptualization and empirical trends," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-182, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Jiwei Qian & Tuan‐Hwee Sng, 2021. "The state in Chinese economic history," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(3), pages 359-395, November.
    6. Deng, Hanzhi, 2021. "The merit of misfortune: Taiping Rebellion and the rise of indirect taxation in modern China, 1850s-1900s," Economic History Working Papers 108564, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    7. Roy, Tirthankar, 2019. "State capacity and the economic history of colonial India," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100723, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Metehan COMERT, 2023. "Changing the Course of Tax Narrative: Relationality Sociality and Postcapitalist Possibilities," Istanbul Journal of Economics-Istanbul Iktisat Dergisi, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 73(73-2), pages 645-674, December.
    9. Lu, Jie, 2015. "Varieties of Governance in China: Migration and Institutional Change in Chinese Villages," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199378746.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G0 - Financial Economics - - General
    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems

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