The Limits of Informational Capacity: Evidence from the French Napoleonic Cadaster

Informational capacity is widely viewed as a fundamental dimension of state power and a factor of economic development. However, there is little direct evidence on the consequences of historical investments in legibility. I analyze the case of the French Napoleonic cadaster, an ambitious land survey which aimed at equalizing the distribution of taxation following the Revolution. Exploiting detailed spatial and tem-poral variation over four decades and 2,697 cantons, I find that the cadaster had little impact on state power, including fiscal capacity. In the long run, areas that received a centralized cadaster collect more taxes than others, suggesting that how information capacity is built matters for fiscal capacity. The cadaster also led to shifts in land use, promoting public works and the privatization of communal land, but had no clear impact on economic development.