Risk, Transaction Costs, and Tax Assignment: Government Finance in the Ottoman Empire
研究风险与交易成本对多层级政府结构中固定税与可变税分配的不同预测，利用16世纪中期奥斯曼帝国的证据支持交易成本解释，表明风险因可通过多种方式获得保险而影响较小。
Risk and transaction costs often provide competing explanations of institutional outcomes. In this article we argue that they offer opposing predictions regarding the assignment of fixed and variable taxes in a multi-tiered governmental structure. Although the central government can pool regional risks from variable taxes, local governments can measure variable tax bases more accurately. Evidence on tax assignment from the mid-sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire supports the transaction cost explanation, suggesting that risk matters less because insurance can be obtained in a variety of ways.