题 目：帝制晚期的可信承诺问题和国家能力——来自雍正火耗归公改革成败的证据

主讲嘉宾：郝煜 北京大学经济学院助理教授

讲座时间：2017年12月6日（周三） 15:00--17:00

讲座地点：学术会堂606

嘉宾简介：

郝煜，北京大学经济学院经济系副主任。2014年9月至今，北京大学经济学院助理教授。2013年8月，加州大学戴维斯分校经济系获经济学博士。2008年6月，加州大学圣迭戈分校获国际关系和太平洋研究硕士。2006年7月，北京大学光华管理学院金融系获经济学学士。其研究成果发表在国内外经济史类的优秀期刊上。

内容摘要：

In pre-modern China, low formal tax coexisted with high corruption and great burden of informal surtax. Geographic size and monitory technology cannot explain this principleagent problem. We argue that without constraints on power, the emperor (or central government) could not credibly commit that he does not predate on the official’s (or localgovernment’s) legal income, and had to turn a blind eye on illegal income of the officials and informal surtax of the local governments. This paper explores a nationwide tax reform in 18th century that formalized county surtaxes with much lower rate than the informal ones. The surtaxes were submitted to provincial capitals, partially retained as emergency funds, and redistributed to counties as anti-corruption salaries and government fees. We explore different timing of reform across provinces and find, using yearly data on famine relief and weather types, that the reform reduced tax payers’ burden and enhanced public goods provision by the provinces as long as the central government didn’t predate on the provincial fiscal autonomy. But both effects disappeared as soon as the central government started to do so. This study provides a new angle on how legal capacity can shape the evolution of fiscal capacity.