Tax Farming and State Capacity: Evidence from Colonial Indonesia
研究了殖民时期印度尼西亚从包税制向国家征税的转变，发现国家能力扩张减少了对包税制的依赖，且不同官僚群体对此影响不同。
Abstract How did centralized fiscal institutions emerge? This study investigates the relationship between state capacity and tax farming—tax collection by private actors—in colonial Indonesia. To do so, I construct a new database that covers the transition from tax farming to state-run tax collection. The results indicate that state capacity expansion reduced reliance on tax farming and that different segments of the state bureaucracy differentially impacted the tax farming transition. Officials from the majority group largely excluded from tax farming (i.e., the indigenous) strongly reduced reliance on tax farming. In contrast, officials from the minority group traditionally wooed as tax farmers (i.e., the non-indigenous Asians) did not reduce such reliance. The findings provide evidence for centralized fiscal institutions emerging when the state becomes less dependent on divide-and-rule strategies that route revenue streams through politically weak intermediaries.