We evaluate the role of taxes on overseas trade in the development of imperial Britain’s fiscal-military state. Influential work, for example, Brewer’s Sinews of Power, attributed increased fiscal capacity to the taxation of domestic, rather than traded, goods: excise revenues, coarsely associated with domestic goods, grew faster than customs revenues. We construct new historical revenue series disaggregating excise revenues from traded and domestic goods. We find substantial growth in revenue from traded goods, accounting for over half of indirect taxation around 1800. This challenges conventional wisdom, attributing the development of the British state to domestic factors. International factors mattered, too.

中文翻译：

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剖析权力的筋骨：国际贸易和英国财政军事国家的崛起，1689-1823 年


我们评估了海外贸易税对大英帝国财政军事国家发展的作用。有影响力的作品，例如布鲁尔的《权力的筋骨》（Sinews of Power），将财政能力的增加归因于对国内商品而不是贸易商品的征税：与国内商品大致相关的消费税收入的增长速度超过了海关收入的增长速度。我们构建了新的历史收入序列，将贸易和国内商品的消费税收入分解。我们发现贸易商品的收入大幅增长，占 1800 年左右间接税的一半以上。这挑战了将英国国家的发展归因于国内因素的传统观点。国际因素也很重要。