Description: Public finance is a major feature of the development of modern European societies, and it is at the heart of the definition of the nature of political regimes. Public finance is also a most relevant issue in the understanding of the constraints and possibilities of economic development. This book is about the rise and development of taxation systems, expenditure programs, and debt regimes in Europe from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of World War I. Its main purpose is to describe and explain the process by which financial resources were raised and managed. The volume presents studies of nine countries or empires that are considered highly representative of the widest European experience on the matter and discusses whether there are any common patterns in the way the different European states responded to the need for raising additional resources to pay for the new tasks they were performing.
Brief description: Pedro Lains is Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He is editor of Análise Social, Secretary-General of the European Historical Economics Society, and member of the Instituto Laureano Figuerola at the Universidad Carlos III, Madrid. He was Director of Imprensa de Ciências Sociais (2004-7) and President of the Portuguese Economic and Social History Association (2003-7). He has published in Análise Social, European Review of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Historical Research, Open Economies Review, Research in Economic History, Revista de Historia Economica, and Scandinavian Economic History Review. His most recent books are História Económica de Portugal, 1700-2000 (2005, with A. Ferreira da Silva); Classical Trade Protectionism, 1815-1914 (2006, with J.-P. Dormois); Em Nome da Europa, 1986-2006 (2007, with M. Costa Lobo); História da Caixa Geral de Depósitos, 1910-1974 (vol. 2, 2008); Agriculture and Economic Development in Europe since 1870 (2008, with V. Pinilla); and Portugal sem Fronteiras: Os novos horizontes da economia portuguesa (2009).
Review Quotes: "Historians have long puzzled over the fact that taxes, government spending, and government debt rose as a share of the economy at the same time that institutions became more liberal in the sense of allowing, and lightly taxing, freer markets. This well-structured team study reconciles global patterns with the diversity of eight countries' individual trajectories across the long nineteenth century. Yes, successful development did follow a general evolution in fiscal structure, yet the national departures from the global path prove as instructive as the average tendency itself." - Peter H. Lindert, University of California, Davis