Sng, Tuan-Hwee; Moriguchi, Chiaki - Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University - 2013
We develop a principal-agent model to study fiscal capacity in pre-modern China and Japan. Before 1850, both nations … local public goods per capita in China than in Japan. Furthermore, while the Tokugawa shogunate's tax revenue grew in tandem … that a greater state capacity might have prepared Japan better for the arrival of the West after 1850. …