Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:25:46.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Perils of Privatization

How the Characteristics of Principals Affected Tax Farming in the Roman Republic and Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Edgar Kiser  and
Danielle Kane
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Almost all premodern states and empires used privatized tax collection. Roman history is a good research site for the study of tax farming because it provides ample variation on its extent and effectiveness while controlling for many other factors. Tax farming began in the early Republic, was expanded but became more exploitative in the late Republic, and then was abolished for some types of taxes and was more centrally controlled for others in the Empire. We use a sociological version of agency theory to explain these changes. In addition to well-known causes of the use and effectiveness of tax farming, such as the size of the empire, the level of development of communications technologies, and the type of tax collected, we show that a major determinant in the Roman case was the characteristics of principals, a function of the form of the state. Differences between the Republic and the Empire can be traced to differences between the senate, which ruled in the former, and the emperors, who ruled in the latter. The perils of privatization in the late Republic were mainly caused by characteristics of the principals, especially the fact that the Roman senate was a multiple principal with a “revolving-door” relationship with the agents it was supposed to control, and were exacerbated by direct senatorial investment in tax farms.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Summer 2007 , pp. 191 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, Julia (1996) “Principals and agents, colonialists and company men: The decay of colonial control in the Dutch East Indies.” American Sociological Review 61: 12–28.Google Scholar
Adcock, F. E. (1964) Roman Political Ideas and Practice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Alston, R. (1998) Aspects of Roman History, AD 14–117. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Andreau, Jean (1999) Banking and Business in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Austin, A. E. (1989) “Roman government and politics, 200-134 BC,” in Austin, A. E., Walbank, F. W., Frederickson, M. W., and Ogilve, R. M. (eds.) Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 163–96.Google Scholar
Badian, Ernst (1968) Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Badian, Ernst (1972) Publicans and Sinners. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Banfield, Edward (1975) “Corruption as a feature of governmental organization.” Journal of Law and Economics 18: 587–605.Google Scholar
Bowman, Alan (1996) “Egypt,” in Bowman, Alan, Champlin, Edward, and Lintott, Andrew (eds.) Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 676–702.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. (1975) “The administrators of Roman Egypt.” Journal of Roman Studies 65: 124–47.Google Scholar
Brunt, P. A. (1990) Roman Imperial Themes. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Casson, L. (1994) Travel in the Ancient World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Che, Yeon-Koo (1995) “Revolving doors and the optimal tolerance for agency collusion.” RAND Journal of Economics 26: 378–97.Google Scholar
Coleman, James (1970) “Political money.” American Political Science Review 64: 1074–87.Google Scholar
Crawford, Michael (1977) “Rome and the Greek world: Economic relationships.” Economic History Review 30: 42–52.Google Scholar
Crawford, Michael (1978) The Roman Republic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Duncan-Jones, Richard (1990) Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Duncan-Jones, Richard (1994) Money and Government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John, and Shipan, Charles (1990) “Congressional influence on bureaucracy.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6: S1–S20.Google Scholar
Finer, Samuel (1997) The History of Government. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Finley, M. I. (1978) “Empire in the Greco-Roman world.” Greece and Rome 25: 1–15.Google Scholar
Frank, Tenny (1927) An Economic History of Rome. London: Cape.Google Scholar
Frank, Tenny (1940) An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome. Vol. 5. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Garnsey, Peter, and Saller, Richard (1987) The Roman Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goldstone, Jack (1991) Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, M. (1997) The Roman World, 44 BC–AD 180. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Grant, M. (1978) History of Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.Google Scholar
Gromley, William (1979) “A test of the revolving door hypothesis at the FCC.” American Journal of Political Science 23: 665–83.Google Scholar
Gruen, E. S. (1968) Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–68 BC. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gruen, E. S. (1995) The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Harris, W. V. (1971) “On war and greed in the second century BC.” American Historical Review 76: 1371–85.Google Scholar
Hopkins, Keith (1980) “Taxes and trade in the Roman Empire (200 BC-AD 400).” Journal of Roman Studies 70: 101–25.Google Scholar
Jones, A. H. M. (1974) The Roman Economy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar (1994) “Markets and hierarchies in early modern fiscal systems: A principalagent analysis.” Politics and Society 22: 284–315.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar (1999) “Comparing varieties of agency theory in economics, political science, and sociology: An illustration from state policy implementation.” Sociological Theory 17: 146–70.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar, and Kane, Joshua (2001) “Revolution and state structure: The bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France.” American Journal of Sociology 107: 183–223.Google Scholar
Lendon, J. E. (1997) Empire of Honor: The Art of Government in the Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret (1988) Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lintott, Andrew (1993) Imperium Romanum. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lintott, Andrew (1999) The Constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Love, J. R. (1991) Antiquity and Capitalism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael (1986) Sources of Social Power. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Millar, Fergus (1977) The Emperor in the Roman World: 31 BC-AD 337. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Millar, Fergus (1984) “The political character of the classical Roman Republic, 200-151 B.C.” Journal of Roman Studies 74: 1–19.Google Scholar
Perrow, Charles (1990) “Economic theories of organization,” in Zukin, Sharon and Dimaggio, Paul (eds.) Structures of Capital. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 121–52.Google Scholar
Potter, David (2004) The Roman Empire at Bay, A.D. 180–395. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rathbone, D. W. (1996) “The imperial finances,” in Bowman, Alan, Champlin, Edward, and Lintott, Andrew (eds.) Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 309–23.Google Scholar
Richardson, John (1976) “The Spanish mines and the development of provincial taxation in the second century BC.” Journal of Roman Studies 66: 139–52.Google Scholar
Richardson, John (1994) “The administration of the empire,” in Clark, J. A., Lintott, Andrew, and Rawson, Elizabeth (eds.) Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 564–98.Google Scholar
Saller, R. P. (1982) Personal Patronage under the Early Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, R. (1998) The Roman Empire. New York: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Scullard, H. H. (1973) Roman Politics, 220–150 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Shelton, J. (1988) As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stevenson, G. H. (1975 [1939]) Roman Provincial Administration. Westport, CT: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Talbert, Richard (1996) “The senate and senatorial and equestrian posts,” in Bowman, Alan, Champlin, Edward, and Lintott, Andrew (eds.) Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 324–43.Google Scholar
Temin, Peter (2004) “Financial intermediation in the early Roman Empire.” Journal of Economic History 64: 705–33.Google Scholar
Vishnia, Rachel Feig (1996) State, Society, and Popular Leaders in Mid-Republican Rome, 241-167 B.C. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wachter, J. (1987) The Roman Empire. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Weber, Max (1968 [1922]) Economy and Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Max (1976 [1909]) The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations. London: New Left Books.Google Scholar
Wells, C. (1992) The Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Stephen (1985) Diocletian and the Roman Recovery. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
Yakobsen, Alexander (1999) Elections and Electioneering in Rome. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar