IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v57y2004i4p636-663.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From privatized to government‐administered tax collection: tax farming in eighteenth‐century France

Author

Listed:
  • EUGENE N. WHITE

Abstract

The establishment of a government bureaucracy to collect taxes is regarded as one of the essential features of a modern economy. While Britain is considered a pioneer, France has been treated as a laggard because of continued reliance on tax farming. Focusing on the largest tax farm, France's late transition from private to government tax collection is explained in a principal‐agent context by the difficulties of monitoring employees and borrowing at low cost in the capital market. Tax farmers continued to earn high returns, absorbing the risk of fluctuating collections, leaving the Crown with lower revenue.

Suggested Citation

  • Eugene N. White, 2004. "From privatized to government‐administered tax collection: tax farming in eighteenth‐century France," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 57(4), pages 636-663, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:57:y:2004:i:4:p:636-663
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2004.00291.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2004.00291.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2004.00291.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1974. "Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(2), pages 219-255.
    2. Alston, Lee J & Datta, Samar K & Nugent, Jeffrey B, 1984. "Tenancy Choice in a Competitive Framework with Transactions Costs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 1121-1133, December.
    3. Allen, Douglas W & Lueck, Dean, 1995. "Risk Preferences and the Economics of Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 447-451, May.
    4. Ackerberg, Daniel A. & Botticini, Maristella, 2000. "The Choice of Agrarian Contracts in Early Renaissance Tuscany: Risk Sharing, Moral Hazard, or Capital Market Imperfections?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 241-257, July.
    5. Potter, Mark & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2002. "The Development of Intermediation in French Credit Markets: Evidence from the Estates of Burgundy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(4), pages 1024-1049, December.
    6. Barro, Robert J., 1987. "Government spending, interest rates, prices, and budget deficits in the United Kingdom, 1701-1918," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 221-247, September.
    7. Hoffman, Philip T., 1982. "Sharecropping and Investment in Agriculture in Early Modern France," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 155-159, March.
    8. Velde, François R. & Weir, David R., 1992. "The Financial Market and Government Debt Policy in France, 1746–1793," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(1), pages 1-39, March.
    9. Hoffman, Philip T., 1986. "Taxes and Agrarian Life in Early Modern France: Land Sales, 1550–1730," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 37-55, March.
    10. White, Eugene Nelson, 1989. "Was There a Solution to the Ancien Régime's Financial Dilemma?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 545-568, September.
    11. Pudney, Stephen & Galassi, Francesco L & Mealli, Fabrizia, 1998. "An Econometric Model of Farm Tenures in Fifteenth-Century Florence," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 65(260), pages 535-556, November.
    12. David E. M. Sappington, 1991. "Incentives in Principal-Agent Relationships," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 45-66, Spring.
    13. Bordo, Michael D. & White, Eugene N., 1991. "A Tale of Two Currencies: British and French Finance During the Napoleonic Wars," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(2), pages 303-316, June.
    14. Alston, Lee J. & Higgs, Robert, 1982. "Contractual Mix in Southern Agriculture since the Civil War: Facts, Hypotheses, and Tests," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 327-353, June.
    15. Sargent, Thomas J & Velde, Francois R, 1995. "Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 474-518, June.
    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. David R Stead, "undated". "Fixed Rent Contracts in English Agriculture, 1750-1850: A Conjecture," Discussion Papers 05/01, Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Bagchi Sutirtha, 2021. "Does the Strength of Incentives Matter for Elected Officials? A Look at Tax Collectors," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(3), pages 967-1012, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Poitras, Geoffrey & Geranio, Manuela, 2016. "Trading of shares in the Societates Publicanorum?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 95-118.
    5. Adnan Q. Khan & Asim I. Khwaja & Benjamin A. Olken, 2016. "Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 219-271.
    6. Safya Morshed, 2024. "State of forgiveness: Cooperation, conciliation, and state formation in Mughal South Asia (1556–1707)," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(1), pages 60-89, February.
    7. Metin M. CoÅŸgel & Thomas J. Miceli, 2009. "Tax Collection in History," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 399-420, July.
    8. Mehmet Emin Yardımcı & Bengü Doğangün Yasa & Ednan Ayvaz, 2022. "Tax Farming Revenues and Accounting in Ottoman Finance: The Case of Kocaeli (1846–1847)," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    9. Belev, Sergei (Белев, Сергей) & Zolotareva, Anna (Золотарев, Анна) & Malayrev, Aleksandr (Малайрев, Александр) & Sokolov, Ilya (Соколов, Илья), 2015. "Structural Alternatives to the Tax Administration [Структурные Альтернативы Налогового Администрирования]," Published Papers mn13, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    10. Mikael Priks, 2005. "Optimal Rent Extraction in Pre-Industrial England and France – Default Risk and Monitoring Costs," CESifo Working Paper Series 1464, CESifo.
    11. 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.
    12. Kammas, Pantelis & Sarantides, Vassilis, 2020. "Democratisation and tax structure in the presence of home production: Evidence from the Kingdom of Greece," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 219-236.

    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. Yutaka ARIMOTO & Tetsuji OKAZAKI & Masaki NAKABAYASHI, 2010. "Agrarian Land Tenancy In Prewar Japan: Contract Choice And Implications On Productivity," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 48(3), pages 293-318, September.
    2. Ackerberg, Daniel A. & Botticini, Maristella, 2000. "The Choice of Agrarian Contracts in Early Renaissance Tuscany: Risk Sharing, Moral Hazard, or Capital Market Imperfections?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 241-257, July.
    3. Benito Arruñada & Manuel González, 1997. "How competition controls team production: The case of fishing firms," Economics Working Papers 261, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Eugene White, 2001. "France's Slow Transition from Privatized to Government-Administered Tax Collection: Tax Farming in the Eighteenth Century," Departmental Working Papers 200116, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    5. Yutaka Arimoto & Tetsuji Okazaki & Masaki Nakabayashi, 2005. "Risk, Transaction Costs, and Geographic Distribution of Share Tenancy: A Case of Pre-War Japan," CARF F-Series CARF-F-024, Center for Advanced Research in Finance, Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo.
    6. Oriana Bandiera, 1999. "On the Structure of Tenancy contracts: Theory and Evidence fron 19th Century Rural Sicily," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 19, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    7. Kim Oosterlinck & Loredana Ureche-Rangau & Jacques-Marie Vaslin, 2013. "Waterloo: a Godsend for French Public Finances?," Working Papers 0041, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    8. Wang, Sen & Bogle, Tim & van Kooten, G. Cornelis, 2012. "Forestry and the New Institutional Economics," Working Papers 130818, University of Victoria, Resource Economics and Policy.
    9. James Conklin, 1998. "The Theory of Sovereign Debt and Spain under Philip II," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 483-513, June.
    10. Lee J. Alston & Bernardo Mueller, 2010. "Property Rights, Land Conflict and Tenancy in Brazil," NBER Working Papers 15771, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lueck, Dean & Miceli, Thomas J., 2007. "Property Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 183-257, Elsevier.
      • Dean Lueck & Thomas J. Miceli, 2004. "Property Law," Working papers 2004-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    12. Roumasset, J., 1995. "The nature of the agricultural firm," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 161-177, March.
    13. Leonor Freire Costa & Susana Münch Miranda, 2023. "Reputational recovery under political instability: Public debt in Portugal, 1641–83," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(3), pages 871-891, August.
    14. Hongyun Han & Hanning Li, 2018. "The Distribution of Residual Controls and Risk Sharing: A Case Study of Farmland Transfer in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.
    15. Sargent, Thomas J & Velde, Francois R, 1995. "Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 474-518, June.
    16. Broz, J. Lawrence & Grossman, Richard S., 2004. "Paying for privilege: the political economy of Bank of England charters, 1694-1844," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 48-72, January.
    17. Vesperoni , Alberto, 2013. "War Finance and the Modern State," NEPS Working Papers 6/2013, Network of European Peace Scientists.
    18. David R Stead, "undated". "Fixed Rent Contracts in English Agriculture, 1750-1850: A Conjecture," Discussion Papers 05/01, Department of Economics, University of York.
    19. Mark Dincecco, 2010. "The Political Economy Of Fiscal Prudence In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-36, March.
    20. Eagling, Lawrence E. & Ashton, Elizabeth C. & Eagle, Josh, 2015. "The incentives of a resource owner: Evidence from a private oyster fishery," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 28-35.

    More about this item

    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:bla:ehsrev:v:57:y:2004:i:4:p:636-663. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    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.