In this chapter I provide an overview of the political economy of taxation in democratic states by considering the three most important issues in the field: (1) the evolution of the power to tax in (what are now) the mature constitutional democracies; (2) the nature and determinants of modern...

We study the effect of franchise extension on the fiscal structure of central and local governments in the United Kingdom between 1820 and 1913 to revisit the Redistribution Hypothesis - the prediction that franchise extension causes an increase in state-sponsored redistribution. We adopt a...

In this chapter I provide an overview of the political economy of taxation in democratic states by considering the three most important issues in the field: (1) the evolution of the power to tax in (what are now) the mature constitutional democracies; (2) the nature and determinants of modern...

We contribute to the political economy of public sector growth by integrating the analysis of three factors: (i) the 'demand' for government, stemming from attempts to coercively redistribute as well as from the ordinary demand for public services, often analyzed in a median voter framework;...