A Comment on: “ State Capacity, Reciprocity, and the Social Contract” by Timothy Besley
中文摘要
贝斯利的论文在一个刻画政策制定精英与纳税公民之间互动的政治经济学模型中，研究公民文化在扩展财政能力中的作用。在均衡状态下，(i) 精英选择税率t，以及支出在公共品G与私人租金B之间的分配；(ii) 公民选择其税收遵从度1 − n。公民文化被定义为一种内在互惠，即当税收用于提供公共品，而非用于向精英提供转移支付和租金时，纳税带来的负效用较低。我从一个引人入胜且涵盖广泛的研究议程出发解读这篇论文：这一议程关注制度与文化在促进经济发展中的作用，贝斯利对此作出了突出贡献，例如贝斯利和佩尔松（2019）。¹ 我的评论旨在阐明该论文对这一文献的理论贡献。首先，我将论证，只要不同模型具有公民文化与公共品供给之间的根本互补性，该论文的结果在这些模型中至少在定性层面上必然成立，从而使分析能够拓展出新的、有趣的含义。随后，我将尝试在该模型的框架内分析国家政体的制度设计，例如宪法框架、法律结构与执行机制、政治程序，以及由官方当局实施的权利与规制等。我将说明，这一分析如何就制度变迁，以及与公民资本、国家能力和公共品供给相关的制度因素，得出一系列丰富的新含义。我还将表明，模型所维持的精英在选择政策时作出承诺这一假设具有重要含义。放松这一假设，也会为文化与制度研究带来有趣的含义。最后，我将简要探讨，如果代际文化传递的特征是父母具有某种形式的不完全利他主义，那么模型中可能出现怎样的公民文化动态。
公民文化与公共品供给的互补性。论文中的形式化模型着重研究公民文化如何影响国家能力与公共品供给：当公共品得到提供时，具有公民意识的公民更愿意遵从税收，这使精英的激励与公民的激励相一致（精英不纳税，但享用公共品）。因此，在均衡状态下，国家能力和公共品供给G均随具有公民意识的公民比例的提高而增加，也就是说，随公民资本μ的提高而增加。此外，所假定的μ的动态过程——用于刻画文化特征代际传递的简约式复制动态——具有如下性质：μ随公共品供给G的增加而上升。
Abstract
BESLEY’S PAPER studies the role of civic culture in expanding fiscal capacity in a political economy model of the interaction between policy-making élites and tax-paying citizens. At an equilibrium, (i) élites choose the tax rate t and the composition of expenditures between public goods G and private rents B, while (ii) citizens choose their tax compliancy, 1 − n. Civic culture is defined by a form of intrinsic reciprocity, a reduced disutility for paying taxes when taxes are used to provide public goods rather than transfers and rents to the élites. I read this paper through the eyes of a fascinating and broad agenda on the role of institutions and culture in fostering economic development, which Besley has prominently contributed to; for example, Besley and Persson (2019).1 My comments aim at elucidating the theoretical contribution of the paper to this literature. First of all, I will argue that the results of the paper are bound to hold at least qualitatively in different models as long as they display a fundamental complementarity between civic culture and public good provision, opening the analysis to new and interesting implications. I will then attempt an analysis of the institutional design of the polity of the state, for example, its constitutional frame, legal structure and enforcement mechanisms, political procedures, rights and regulations enforced by official authorities, and so on, in the context of the model. I will illustrate how this analysis produces a rich set of novel implications with regards to institutional change and to the institutional correlates of civic capital, state capacity, and public goods provision. I will also show that the maintained assumption in the model, that élites display commitment when choosing policy, has important implications. Relaxing this assumption also produces interesting implications for the study of culture and institutions. Finally, I will briefly speculate on the dynamics of civic culture which can be obtained in the model if inter-generational cultural transmission is characterized by some form of imperfect altruism on the parts of the parents. Complementarity between civic culture and public good provision. The formal model in the paper focuses on how civic culture affects state capacity and public good provision: civic-minded citizens are more willing to comply with taxation when public goods are provided and this aligns the incentives of élites with those of the citizenry (the élites do not pay taxes but enjoy public goods). At equilibrium, therefore, state capacity and public good provision G increase with the fraction of civic-minded citizens, that is, with civic capital μ. Furthermore, the postulated dynamics of μ (a reduced-form replicator dynamics to capture inter-generational transmission of cultural traits) has the property that μ increases with the provision of public goods G.