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

Blomme (Jan). The economie Development of Belgian Agriculture 1880-1980. A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

Van Zanden Jan L. Blomme (Jan). The economie Development of Belgian Agriculture 1880-1980. A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 74, fasc. 3-4, 1996. Histoire medievale, moderne et contemporaine - Middeleeuwse, moderne en hedendaagse geschiedenis. pp. 1030-1032

Wages and the standard of living in Europe, 1500 1800

It is argued that the study of the development of the living standard of large segments of the European population between 1500 and 1800 should make use of the available evidence on prices and wages. On the basis of wage data for about twenty European cities and regions, the geographical patterns in silver and grain wages and their development over time are studied. This leads to the conclusion that there is no clear relationship between economic development (measured for example by the urbanisation ratio) and changes in the standard of living in Europe in this period. This also has implications for the hypothesis that an industrious revolution occurred in Western Europe during this period. Alternative explanations for the fact that the per capita consumption of certain market goods increased in this period (such as changes in relative prices and an increase in labour effort as a result of falling real wages) are suggested.