Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

Das 'Modell Deutschland': Eine Herausforderung für die U.S.A.

Am 25. und 26. April 1980 fand eine wichtige und den Zeitgeist charakterisierende Konferenz statt. Eine illustre Gruppe von circa 125 Persönlichkeiten, einschließlich führender Senatoren, Unternehmer und Universitätsprofessoren - und bezeichnenderweise ohne wichtige Gewerkschaftsvertreter - erörterte 2 Tage lang in der Harvard Universität die zukünftige Entwicklung der amerikanischen Wirtschaft unter dem Titel »Konferenz über die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit der Vereinigten Staaten«. Im Mittelpunkt stand die Diskussion zweier Vorträge, die implizit den ernsten Krisenzustand der amerikanischen politischen Ökonomie erörterten. Während sich der eine Beitrag auf Japan konzentrierte, beschäftigte sich der andere mit »der deutschen wirtschaftlichen Herausforderung«. Beide Vorträge versuchten, diesem auserlesenen Publikum drei Problembereiche vor Augen zu führen: 1. Das 'Geheimnis' der japanischen und bundesdeutschen Erfolge; 2. Die unmittelbaren Konsequenzen für die Wirtschaft und Politik der Vereinigten Staaten; 3. Mögliche Lernprozesse für zukünftige strukturelle Wandlungen in den Vereinigten Staaten anhand konkreter Beispiele und Erfahrungen der Modelle Japan und Deutschland

Numerical Simulations of Electrically Induced Birefringence in Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers

It has been recently experimentally demonstrated that propagation and polarization properties of the photonic liquid crystal fibers can be effectively tuned with the electric field. In particular, effective electric tuning of the phase birefringence has been obtained in the photonic liquid crystal fibers based on the high index glasses. Accurate numerical simulations of the impact of electric field on the guiding properties of the photonic liquid crystal fibers require complex methods, in which all important physical properties of the liquid crystal are taken into account (optical anisotropy, molecular orientation and relatively high losses). In this paper we present two different numerical approaches based on the finite element method. First one utilizes the simplified assumption of the "collective tilt" of molecules, and gives rough estimation of the phase birefringence tuning range. The second approach is much more rigorous, since electrically induced reorientation of the liquid crystal is calculated with a Q-tensor method giving the values of the inhomogeneous permittivity tensor. The value of the electrically induced birefringence calculated with the second method is in a good agreement with the experimental results