PEASANTS, LORDS, AND LEVIATHAN: WINNERS AND LOSERS FROM THE ABOLITION OF FRENCH FEUDALISM, 1780–1820
研究法国大革命废除封建制度对地主、农民和国家财政的分配效应,发现地主和农民面临租金和税收双重压力,但生产力提升部分抵消了损失。
This article investigates the distributional impact of the abolition of “feudalism” during the French Revolution. Landlords ostensibly benefitted from laws permitting them to raise rents by the equivalent of the former tithe. Increasingly, however, the state appropriated this windfall by raising land taxes. Tenants ultimately shouldered a double burden of higher rents and heavier taxes, and they often responded with acts of evasion. But the new financial pressures on tenants and landlords were often offset—and occasionally overbalanced—by substantial productivity gains, which cushioned their disposable incomes in the face of these new obligations.