International exchanges of ideas
about taxation since 1750

 

The scope of the project - Research question and case studies
The component studies - Planning workshop held on 18 October
 Conference - Workshops - Organisers - Contact information

The Transfer of Ideas about Taxation since 1750
16-18 September 2005
CRASSH hosted a conference which aimed to explore the transfer of ideas about taxation from the mid-eighteenth century to the beginning of the 1950s. Click to view the meeting report.

The scope of the project

Algerian Tax Stamp
Algerian tax stamp, 1928-1946
The history of taxation reveals many social, political, and economic characteristics of a society. For this reason, historians and economists have become increasingly interested in fiscal history. In most cases, research concentrates on national histories of taxation. This focus results from the close connection between the emergence of modern nation states and their fiscal systems. However, strictly national perspectives on the history of taxation neglect the importance of international exchanges of ideas about taxation. These exchanges were often crucial in shaping the national histories of taxation. The present project wishes to add to national histories of taxation and to comparative-history approaches to the subject by exploring exchanges of ideas about taxation. The project explores exchanges between nations, within federal structures, and within empires.

Research question and case studies

Algerian Tax Stamp
Algerian tax stamp, 1928-1946
The focus is on the question of how ideas about taxation are shaped, how they travel across borders, and how they are received and changed by those who receive them. The project’s focus is on ideas about taxation, but it is equally crucial to explore the institutional environment in which these ideas were developed and the institutional change that they helped to bring about.‘Ideas about taxation’ means ideas which developed in an academic context (in particular those of economists, administrative scientists, and legal scholars), the specialised knowledge of experts and administrators, and the views about taxation held by tax payers and the wider public. Differences and congruency between the ideas of these different groups are crucial for the stability and the development of systems of taxation. Differences between the ideas of administrators and tax payers about what constitutes ‘just’ taxation, for example, have led to the collapse of fiscal institutions and governments.

In order to answer the research question the project aims to bring together scholars who work on connective aspects of the history of taxation. This will make it possible to show the importance of such exchanges. Based on the component studies it will be possible to gain a conceptual understanding of the way in which exchanges of ideas about taxation influenced national histories of taxation. Moreover, the project contributes to the development of the conceptual framework that is necessary to work on connective aspects of fiscal history: to promote debate on methods, theories, and research tools is an important aspect of the research project.

The component studies

Algerian Tax Stamp
Algerian tax stamp, 1928-1946
The component studies concentrate on various aspects of the history of taxation. One focus is on international exchanges in the European and German history of taxation. The period of investigation includes the beginnings of the formation of the fiscal state in Prussia and other German territories in the late eighteenth century and extends to the consolidation of the fiscal structures of the German nation-state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

A second focus is on exchanges within the British Empire from the mid-eighteenth century until WW I. In the period important developments towards the institutionalisation of political, economic, and financial relations within the British Empire took place.

Research on other areas and periods, and research on methodological and theoretical aspects which contributes to the aims of the project is welcome. The project includes contributions from researchers who are at different levels in their academic careers, including scholars who work on doctoral and post-doctoral research projects.

The component studies are self-contained, but there are considerable synergies between the individual studies. The scholars contributing to the project will meet on a regular base in order to present and discuss their own work. Topics of discussion will also include the further evolution of the research project itself. The project’s discussion forum will offer the possibility to invite other scholars in the field to present their work. The project hopes to encourage co-operations in research and publication between the scholars participating in the project. Work done in the framework of the research project will be circulated in the form of working papers and in other formats.

Planning workshop held on 18 October

Algerian Tax Stamp
Algerian tax stamp, 1928-1946
A half day workshop was held in the Saltmarsh Rooms, King’s College on 18 October 2004. The meeting was organised by Florian Schui and examined aspects of the international exchanges of ideas about taxation. The aim was to set up a network of scholars who work on the subject. The discussion focused on developing a conceptual framework for this network which will consist of individual historical case studies about exchanges of ideas about taxation. The discussion concentrated on exchanges within the British Empire and exchanges involving Germany and the German states. For both geographical concentrations Atlantic exchanges emerged as crucial. A follow-up conference is anticipated. Among the participants were Martin Daunton, Gareth Stedman Jones, John Tiley, William O’Reilly, and Holger Nehring. Click for the programme. Click for a list of participants.

Conference
A three-day conference about The Transfer of Ideas about Taxation since 1750
took place on 16-18 September 2005. The event took place in the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and involved participants from the UK, Europe and the US. Details of the participants and draft programme are available on the CRASSH web site »

Workshops
CRASSH hosted a series of workshops entitled International Exchanges of Ideas about Taxation between March and May 2005. More details »

Organisers
Holger Nehring (holger.nehring@st-peters.oxford.ac.uk) is a Junior Research Fellow at St. Peter's College, Oxford. He has worked on the connective history of the protests against nuclear weapons in Britain and West Germany in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He is also a Research Associate of the UN History Project of the Centre for History and Economics. He has now started work on a project on the comparative history of income taxation and state-building in Britain, the German states and the United States, 1890-1920.

Florian Schui (fhws2@cam.ac.uk) is a Junior Research Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. He has worked on various aspects of the history of political and economic thought. His monograph ‘Early debates about “industrie”: Voltaire and his contemporaries’ is forthcoming with Palgrave-Macmillan in 2005. Currently he is working on exchanges of ideas about taxation between France and Prussia in the second half of the eighteenth century. In particular, he investigates the exchanges of tax administrators and fiscal advisors between France and Prussia in the period. Together with Holger Nehring he is planning work on exchanges of ideas about taxation between Germany and the Allies in the period after World War II.

Contact information
Initial point of contact for any questions or enquiries is Florian Schui at fhws2@cam.ac.uk

Postal address:
Centre for History and Economics
King's College
Cambridge
CB2 1ST
UK

Phone and Fax:
Tel: +44 1223 331197 / 331120
Fax: +44 1223 331198