Building Fiscal Capacity in Colonial Mexico: From Fragmentation to Centralization
研究了18世纪墨西哥殖民地为何成功实现财政集权与军事改革，发现七年战争加剧了碎片化财政下的搭便车问题，促使精英与王室合作，改革在军事脆弱地区更成功。
The success of fiscal centralization and military buildup in colonial Mexico contrasts with failed similar attempts elsewhere. Why did powerful elites comply with fiscal-military reforms in eighteenth-century Mexico? I argue that the Seven Years' War provided incentives for the Crown to centralize and elites to comply by accentuating the free rider problems inherent in the provision of military defense under fiscal fragmentation. Fiscal data and history document that reforms were more successful in regions more militarily vulnerable and where benefits were more aligned between the elites and the Crown. Centralization served the elites to commit to collective cooperation.