【主办单位】中国人民大学经济学院经济思想史教研室、经济史教研室

【时间】2019年11月21日 12：00-13：30

【地点】中国人民大学明商0306教室

【主题】Land Reform and Fiscal Capacity: Evidence from China in 1950s

【主讲人】游五岳 中央财经大学金融学院

【主持人】孙    睿   中国人民大学经济学院

【评论人】王    珏   中国人民大学经济学院

【内容提要】The incentive of local tax agents shapes the state’s fiscal capacity. This paper argues that Chinese land reform in 1950s increased the state extraction capacity by eliminating the traditional “tax farmers” in rural and replacing them with agents more tightly controlled by the state. The confiscation and redistribution of land played a key role in this reconstruction. Using a DID strategy, we show that a county with a higher ratio of land owned by “exploiting classes” before the reform would have a higher tax-to-output ratio after the reform. One of the mechanisms we find was that more confiscation and redistribution mobilized more grassroots peasants to serve as state agents in local, though it also increased the administration cost of the state. The effect of land reform on fiscal capacity was larger when the county was less influenced by Confucianism in history. We also find that its contribution to industrialization varied across different economic systems.

编辑:杨菲