Taxing Identity: Theory and Evidence From Early Islam

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Saleh, Mohamed; Tirole, Jean
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA17265
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1881-1919
• 关键词: inference; religion; taxation; evasion; GROWTH; GOODS

摘要

A ruler who does not identify with a social group, whether on religious, ethnic, cultural, or socioeconomic grounds, is confronted with a trade-off between taking advantage of the out-group population's eagerness to maintain its identity and inducing it to comply (conversion, quitting, exodus, or any other way to accommodate the ruler's own identity). This paper first nests economists' extraction model, in which rulers are revenue-maximizers, within a more general identity-based model, in which rulers care also about inducing people to lose their identity, both in a static and an evolving environment. This paper then constructs novel data sources to test the implications of both models in the context of Egypt's conversion to Islam between 641 and 1170. The evidence supports the identity-based model.