Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-11T16:08:49.360Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

War, Moral Hazard, and Ministerial Responsibility: England After the Glorious Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2011

Gary W Cox
Gary W Cox*
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, 616 Serra St., Stanford, CA 94305-6044. E-mail: gwcox@stanford.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I reexamine Douglass North and Barry Weingast's argument regarding credible commitment and sovereign debt in post-revolution England. The central problem that the architects of the revolution settlement had to solve, I argue, was not the king's frequent reneging on financial commitments (a symptom), but the moral hazard that generated the kings' malfeasance (the underlying cause). The central element of the revolution settlement was thus not better holding kings to their commitments, but better holding royal advisors to account for all consequences of the Crown's policies—through what we now call ministerial responsibility.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 133 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Clifford B. “Ministerial Responsibility in the 1620s.” The Journal of Modern History 34, no. 4 (1962): 381–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, Robert H., and Donald Lien, Da-Hsiang. “A Note on Taxation, Development, and Representative Government.” Politics & Society 14, no. 1 (1985): 53–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braddick, M. J. The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Broz, J. L. “The Origins of Central Banking: Solutions to the Free-Rider Problem.” International Organization 52, no. 2 (1998): 231–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broz, J. L., and Grossman, R.. “Paying for Privilege: The Political Economy of Bank of England Charters, 1694–1844.” Explorations in Economic History 41, no. 1 (2004): 48–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandaman, C. D. The English Public Revenue, 1660–1688. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and McCubbins, Mathew D.. “The Institutional Determinants of Economic Policy Outcomes.” In Presidents, Parliaments, and Policy, edited by McCubbins, Mathew D. and Haggard, Stephan, 21–63. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Crawford, Vincent. “International Lending, Long-Term Credit Relationships and Dynamic Contract Theory.” Princeton Studies in International Finance No. 59, Department of Economics, Princeton University, 1987.Google Scholar
Dickson, P. G. M. The Financial Revolution in England New York: Macmillan, 1967.Google Scholar
Dincecco, Mark. “Fiscal Centralization, Limited Government, and Public Revenues in Europe, 1650–1913.” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 1 (2009): 48–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drelichman, Mauricio, and Voth, Hans-Joachim. “Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Philip II, 1556–1598.” Unpublished Manuscript, University of British Columbia, 2010.Google Scholar
Epstein, Stephan. Freedom and Growth: The Rise of States and Markets in Europe, 1300–1750. London: Routledge, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James. “Rationalist Explanations for War.” International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 379–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, John, and Rosenbluth, Frances. “Warlike Democracies.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 1 (2008): 3–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foord, A. S. “The Waning of The Influence of the Crown'.” English Historical Review 62, no. 245 (1947): 484–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner. “Toward Political Economy of Implementation: The Impact of Administrative Power on Institutional and Economic Development.” Unpublished Manuscript, Stanford University, 2010.Google Scholar
Hill, Brian W. The Growth of Parliamentary Parties, 1689–1742. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976.Google Scholar
Hirst, Derek. Authority and Conflict: England, 1603–1658. London: Edward Arnold, 1986.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Philip T. “Why Was It That Europeans Conquered the World?” Unpublished Manuscript, California Institute of Technology, 2010.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Philip T., and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent. “The Political Economy of Warfare and Taxation in Early Modern Europe: Historical Lessons for Economic Development.” In The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics, edited by Drobak, John N. and Nye, John, 31–55. New York: Academic Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Jha, Saumitra. “Shares, Coalition Formation, and Political Development: Evidence from Seventeenth-Century England.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, Research Paper No. 2005, 2008.Google Scholar
Kemp, Betty. King and Commons, 1660–1832. London: Macmillan, 1957.Google Scholar
Kletzer, Kenneth M., and Wright, Brian D.. “Sovereign Debt as Intertemporal Barter.” American Economic Review 90, no. 3 (2000): 621–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David. “Powerful Pacifists: Democratic States and War.” American Political Science Review 86, no. 1 (1992): 24–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Margaret. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Muthoo, Abhinay. Bargaining Theory with Applications. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass C. Growth and Structural Change. New York: Norton, 1981.Google Scholar
North, Douglass, and Weingast, Barry. “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century Britain.” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (1989): 803–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Patrick. “The Political Economy of British Taxation, 1660–1815.” Economic History Review, 2d Series 41, no. 1 (1988): 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Patrick. “Fiscal Exceptionalism: Great Britain and Its European Rivals from Civil War to Triumph at Trafalgar and Waterloo.” Working Paper No. 65/01. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, 2001.Google Scholar
O'Brien, Patrick. “Fiscal and Financial Preconditions for the Rise of British Naval Hegemony, 1485–1815.” Working Paper No. 91/05. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics, 2005.Google Scholar
Pincus, Steve. 1688: The First Modern Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Powell, Robert. In the Shadow of Power. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Stephen. “Securitization of Sovereign Debt: Corporations as a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism in Britain, 1694 to 1750.” Unpublished Manuscript, Texas Christian University, 2010.Google Scholar
Reiter, Dan, and Stam, Allan. “Democracy, War Initiation, and Victory.” American Political Science Review 92, no. 2 (1998): 377–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Clayton. “The Growth of Ministerial Responsibility to Parliament in Later Stuart England.” Journal of Modern History 28, no. 3 (1956): 215–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Clayton. “Privy Council Schemes and Ministerial Responsibility in Later Stuart England.” American Historical Review 64, no. 3 (1959): 564–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, H. L. “Tying the King's Hands: Credible Commitment and Royal Fiscal Policy During the Old Regime.” Rationality and Society 1, no. 2 (1989): 240–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, H. L. The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Roseveare, Henry. The Financial Revolution: 1660–1760. London: Longman, 1991.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. “The Crisis of the Tax State.” In International Economic Papers: Translations prepared for the International Economic Association, edited by Peacock, Allan et al. ., 712–51. New York: MacMillan, 1918 [1954].Google Scholar
Scott, William Robert. The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint Stock Companies to 1720: Companies for Foreign Trade, Colonization, Fishing, and Mining, Volume I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912.Google Scholar
Stasavage, David. Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stasavage, David. “Partisan Politics and Public Debt: The Importance of the Whig Supremacy' for Britain's Financial Revolution.” European Review of Economic History 11 (2007): 123–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sussman, Nathan, and Yafeh, Yishay. “Institutional Reforms, Financial Developments and Sovereign Debt: Britain, 1690–1790.” The Journal of Economic History 66, no. 3 (2006): 906–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Todd, Alpheus. On Parliamentary Government in England. Volume I. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1867.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael. Reputation and International Cooperation: Sovereign Debt Across Three Centuries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, John, and Wills, Douglas. “Revolution, Restoration, and Debt Repudiation: The Jacobite Threat to Britain's Institutions and Economic Growth.” The Journal of Economic History 60, no. 2 (2000): 418–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, J. S. “Navy Finance, 1649–1660.” Historical Journal 39, no. 2 (1996): 457–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Oliver. “Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange.” American Economic Review 73, no. 4 (1983): 519–40.Google Scholar