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Risk, Transaction Costs, and Tax Assignment: Government Finance in the Ottoman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 August 2005

METIN M. COŞGEL  and
THOMAS J. MICELI
METIN M. COŞGEL
Affiliation:
Metin M. Coşgel is Professor, Economics Department, U-1063, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1063. E-mail: Cosgel@UConnvm.Uconn.Edu.
THOMAS J. MICELI
Affiliation:
Thomas J. Miceli is Professor, Economics Department, U-1063, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-1063. E-mail: Miceli@Uconnvm.Uconn.Edu.
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Abstract

Risk and transaction costs often provide competing explanations of institutional outcomes. In this article we argue that they offer opposing predictions regarding the assignment of fixed and variable taxes in a multi-tiered governmental structure. Although the central government can pool regional risks from variable taxes, local governments can measure variable tax bases more accurately. Evidence on tax assignment from the mid-sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire supports the transaction cost explanation, suggesting that risk matters less because insurance can be obtained in a variety of ways.

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Type
ARTICLES
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 65 , Issue 3 , September 2005 , pp. 806 - 821
Copyright
© 2005 The Economic History Association

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