Abstract: In recent decades, economists and economic historians alike have turned their attention to the study of the relations between institutional development and the comparative economic performance of nations. One major conclusion of that discussion is that the success of national institutions depends to a large extent on the existence of consolidated national political systems. The vitality of institutions that provide services for the management of particular fields of economic activity, such as transport networks, banks, or schools, is crucially dependent on a nation's overall national institutional background. Yet at present, the new institutional economics is bereft of a foundational theory for state formation. One way to overcome that deficit is to study the financing of liberal states in nineteenth-century Europe. As economic historians, the contributors to this volume recognize that the reform of fiscal and financial systems at the end of the ancien régime and in the aftermath of nearly a quarter century of revolutionary warfare (1792–1815) was crucial for both the establishment of liberal regimes and the development of European economies in the century to 1914. The aims of this book are, first, to outline the history of the reconstruction of fiscal and financial regimes and, second, to look for patterns in the processes by which the European states obtained funds as they responded to the new and evolving tasks of government throughout the period under analysis.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-02-08
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 10
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