Le spese degli stati italiani, 1350-1700: modelli a confronto

Public finance has traditionally become one of the pillars of the literature on state-building. From Schumpeter onwards taxation, in particular, has attracted many scholars from history, sociology, and economics. The main areas of interest regarding the dynamics and structure of revenues, the relations between central government and taxpayers, the connections between war, taxation and the growth of the administrative machine. Much has been written and, however, much remains to be written. While the sector of state revenues has enjoyed wide interest, the same can not be said for expenditure, the other side of the budget. Very few studies have systematically dealt with redistribution of resources made by public expenditure, and we still lack adequate tools that support the development of a theoretical model in the long run. This is not surprising: in fact, the structure of expenditure of an ancien regime state appears pretty simple, being characterized by the costs of the military and the service of government debt. Yet this structure is not static and witnesses changes over the period considered in relation to the institutional organization and political events. This paper aims first of all to outline some structural elements of public expenditure in the Italian states from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period; secondly to compare various data in order to highlight the redistributive effects; and finally, to discuss the question concerning state formation in the ancien regime.