No taxation without informational foundation: on the role of legibility in tax state development
结合跨国统计分析和阿根廷、智利的历史案例，研究信息能力如何促进财政能力发展，强调精英配合信息收集对税收国家建设的关键作用。
Abstract This article combines cross-national statistical analysis and in-depth historical case studies of Argentina and Chile to explore the relationship between two crucial dimensions of state capacity. We show that information capacity contributes to the development of fiscal capacity. When states have accurate information about their subject populations, territories, and economies, they are more effective at mobilizing revenues. In developing this argument this article makes three broader contributions. First, while existing scholarship either treats distinct dimensions of state capacity as separate entities, or simply assumes that they complement each other, our findings urge scholars to treat state development as sequential and to further investigate how multiple dimensions of state capacity are interrelated. Second, the paper suggests a broader underlying set of mechanisms – economies of scope – which connect these dimensions, and explores them in the specific context of how information capacity facilitates fiscal capacity. Third, we join the scholarship on the importance of societal compliance in the creation of the fiscal state, but with a focus on elite cooperation with the state's information collection efforts, which we show to be crucial to tax state development.