Investing in fiscal capacity: legislative debates, military pressures, and tax policy in the United Kingdom (1803–1913)
Journal: Journal of Institutional Economics
Year: 2025

Abstract Numerous studies show an association between military pressures and fiscal development, often based on cross-national correlations between wars and fiscal outcomes (e.g., tax ratios). However, investments in fiscal capacity may take time to yield higher tax revenues, obscuring the importance of factors that contributed to those investments. This article shifts attention from fiscal outcomes to the policymaking process. Using text-as-data techniques to analyse British parliamentary debat