Fiscal System in the Formative Period of Ancient Chinese Empires (late fourth – first centuries BC)
Korolkov Maxim V.
The article analyses the formation of the fiscal system in the early Chinese empires of Qin and Han against the background of political and economic history of fourth to first centuries B. C. The Qin fiscal model took shape in the middle of the Warring States period (453–221 B.C.) and featured a number of in-kind taxes and labour levies to maximize resource extraction from a relatively circumscribed fiscal base. This system proved itself as an efficient mechanism through which the Qin campaigns of conquest were financed during the fourth and third centuries B.C., but its functioning was associated with high monitoring costs and ruled out fiscal compromise with local elites. In course of the century that followed the collapse of the Qin Empire in 207 B.C., the second fiscal transformation took place, which resulted in the development of fiscal principles and techniques that endured for the next two millennia of China’s imperial history.
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