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Wars, Taxation, and Representation: Evidence from Five Centuries of German History

Sascha O. Becker et al.

Journal of the European Economic Association2025https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvaf019article
AJG 4ABDC A*
Weight
0.66

Abstract

We provide causal evidence for the role of warfare in the development of medieval constitutionalism. Using novel data on the universe of German cities between 1290 and 1710, we show that military conflicts led to city councils that were larger, more likely to be elected by citizens, and more likely to include representatives of craft guilds. Additionally, these conflicts resulted in a substantial increase in local fiscal and spending capacity. We exploit the gender of the firstborn children of local nobles as a source of exogenous variation in conflicts.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvaf019

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@article{sascha2025,
  title        = {{Wars, Taxation, and Representation: Evidence from Five Centuries of German History}},
  author       = {Sascha O. Becker et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of the European Economic Association},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvaf019},
}

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Wars, Taxation, and Representation: Evidence from Five Centuries of German History

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Evidence weight

0.66

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.79 × 0.4 = 0.32
M · momentum0.80 × 0.15 = 0.12
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.