Austin Mitchell (Tohoku University), “Show Me the Money: Explaining Fiscal Capacity Building in Late 16th Century Japan”

U.S. ET: March 2 (Thursday), 8 – 9 PM

JST: March 3 (Friday), 10 – 11 AM

Zoom Registration: Link

Paper is available here

Author: Austin Mitchell (Tohoku University), Minzhao Wang (Peking University), and Weiwen Yin (University of Macau)

Abstract:
How do rulers develop fiscal capacity in the process of state-building? In this paper, we propose a mechanism for how rulers implement fiscal capacity building according to their incentives for revenue extraction. Specifically, rulers prioritize implementing fiscal capacity building policies that can overcome the asymmetric information problem between central and local governments in areas where potential extractable revenue is large. We test the hypotheses using the context of late 16th century Japan where Toyotomi Hideyoshi implemented cadastral surveys (taiko kenchi) as an effort of state-building. Based on a panel of provinces between 1582-1598 in Japan, we find that localities with larger potential output were the primary targets of the land surveys, while neither involvement in the invasion of Korea nor opposition against Hideyoshi predict survey implementation. The results suggest that revenue extraction motivates how state-building is pursued to a greater extent than a locality’s exposure to external or internal competitions.

Presenter: Austin Mitchell (Tohoku University)

Discussants: David Stasavage (New York University), Junichi Yamasaki (Kobe University)

Chair: Amy Catalinac (New York University)