The paper studies the historical process of fiscal state-building in 19th and early 20th century Greece. A new public finances dataset, compiled from primary sources, is combined with international databases in a graphical network analysis revealing a rich set of dynamic interactions between economic (tax revenue, debt payments and GDP per capita) and institutional variables (army and representation). The emphasis is on two particular results closely related to the fiscal capacity literature: (a) the size of the army had a positive causal effect on tax revenues whereas (b) representation had a negative causal effect on tax revenue.
The paper calculates the top income shares in Greece from 1967 (the seizure of power by the military dictatorship) until 2017 (the aftermath of the debt crisis). This long-run perspective allows for the examination of the relationship between inequality and institutional transformations, namely democracy, finance and crisis. We find in particular that (a) transition to democracy did not affect the income share of the top decile, whereas social democracy had a significant negative impact (b) financial development and liberalization substantially increased all top decile shares (c) debt crisis, consolidation and recession were beneficial for the upper ranks of the top decile.
This short empirical paper examines the unemployment dynamics in Greece both in the long run and during the current crisis.
The paper introduces public education financed by linear taxation into a standard model of persistent inequality. It obtains the straightforward conclusion that agents with income above the average will prefer a positive tax rate.
The paper investigates unemployment dynamics in six European countries with a particular focus on the gender dimension.
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